Gladys gets to Page 3.

Or maybe it was page 33. Whatever .. she's in the news and is feeling quite smug about it. This pic was taken at the Overseas Women's Foundation's Annual Bazaar on December 1st, 2007, held at the St Mark's Cathedral grounds. Docteur Clown had a table there. Well, half a table. We set up shop with our wonderful 2008 calendar --- a rather delightful work of art, featuring photographs of all of us clowns - and our colourful postcards, as well as a couple of exotic cakes and muffins. We also had MUCH fun painting clown faces on lots of wonderful little children. Unfortunately Dr Crazy, who took pictures of these mini-clowns, has gone away on holiday and so we shall have to wait till she gets back before we can share those pictures with you.

Gladys had a WONDERFUL time. She wore her favourite hat and inbetween painting faces and helping herself to clown cake, she tromped around the bazaar, meeting everyone and making lots of new friends. She also adopted two very nice puppets, a witch who now goes by the name "Mrs. Snape" and a little clown who is yet to be named (you can see him in the picture .. Gladys has him by the neck).

She also got to have a mesmerising conversation with Basava, a large and extremely patient ox who was taking children on cart rides around the cathedral grounds. He was a quiet sort of ox, didn't have much to say, but turned out to be a very good listener.

Yes, it was a good day indeed. A nice nutritious clown lunch of cotton candy and something wonderful called a hog dog (oh dear .. I do hope it was halal) and she even bumped into Santa Claus. Alas, she did not get a chance to sit on Santa's lap (that would have been quite a feat, as he was standing up at the time) but he did promise to send her Professor Snape for Christmas. I do hope Shah Rukh doesn't get to hear about this. He might think she's moving on to greener grounds. Greener .. get it? Slytherin? House colours? Green .. oh, never mind.

Well anyway, I suspect she did this for me, sweet big-hearted Gladys, as she knows how madly in love with Professor Snape I am. Very selfless of her.The highlight of the day was when Dr. Tonsils showed up. Yes! Gladys' daddy! It was his 81st birthday and so all the clowns got together to give him a beautifully tuneless rendition of the "Happy Birthday" song. There was a strange expression on his face while they sang, the harmony and melody drawing crowds of curious onlookers (or perhaps music lovers). It was a combination of pleasure and embarrassment, I thought, but Gladys assures me it was pure unadulterated joy, perhaps on an empty stomach. (He left for lunch soon after).

On went the clowns .. with a short "coffee" break at Koshy's - or as my mother would like to say, "she's just stepped out for a bit of fresh air" .. Gladys and Mrs. Rose took Severine and me over for that much-needed fix of fresh air, and my oh my, aren't those clowns a couple of head-turners.

And then all too soon, the day was over. We didn't manage to sell all our calendars (you have been warned .. I may show up at your doorstep any day now, peddling these wares) but it definitely looked like all the kids there were sold on the clown doctors.

Long time no G.

Ooh, it feels good to be back! Yesterday I finally started clowning again. Mamooo and Gladys did the rounds at Philomena's, there were lots of little girls and boys ranging from 4 to 9 years old or so - Dolly, Pavan, Rita, Prashant, Giri, Akash and one little boy whose name Gladys forgot to ask, mainly because he had a bar of Cadbury's in his shirt pocket so she kept calling him Chocolate Boy and pretending to steal his candy - and we succeeded in getting loads of giggles from them all. Mamu's fart-balloon was a huge success.

My crotchety old cleaning lady was very happy to see us again, although she chased us out of one room where she had just mopped the floor. She talks to Gladys a lot. As Gladys does not speak any Tamil, these conversations are always quite intriguing. Most of the time Gladys assumes that she is asking for a dance, so usually replies by trying to sweep her into a waltz. She was saying something about tomatoes at one point, and indicating Gladys' nose. It must have been some traditional Tamil vegetarian compliment.

We also succeeded in drying some tears, which felt good. The first was Sakshi, a little boy in the ICU, having a drip put in. Screaming his head off. We didn't do much good at first, but then Mamu started singing softly and he actually calmed down. Meanwhile his mummy was getting equally worked up and she dissolved into tears too so Gladys took her off to one side and had a little chat to dry them off.

For me, the best part of the morning - the biggest compliment - was when we were heading back at the end of our rounds, and one of the senior nurses stopped to tell us that Akash, one of the kids we'd seen earlier was crying and would we go back and cheer him up? It really felt good, and meant a lot that she recognised our contribution. He wasn't in pain, just cranky and unhappy with having to use a nebuliser for his wheezing. But it was wonderful to be there and see him soon go from screaming back to his delightfully mischievous giggling.

So - a lovely morning. Exhausting, of course. Two hours of clown energy can be quite draining. So you can imagine how exhausted I am NOW - as I've just got back from a whole day of being Gladys at a Christmas bazaar. And so I'm off to bed and will write about today's adventures tomorrow!

Tree #5: A frangipani tree in Bangalore, India

My friend Priya the artist has planted me a frangipani tree. She tells me that it will have beautiful pink and yellow flowers and promises me more pictures when it does. But for starters, here is its baby-pic.

Tree #4: A neem tree in Udupi, India

This tree is Zinan's! She's Ashraf and Zeenat's daughter (see previous "Plant Me A Tree" post). I'm quite excited about this tree because neem trees are supposed to be very healing - not just in their byproducts - but in their very presence. They heal the air around them. What a lovely thought.

Zinan is 11 years old now. She's a very talented artist (it's in the Tonse genes, honestly!) and I'm going to ask her if she'll draw or paint the tree for me, instead of the usual photo. She misses her brother, I know. Although he was older, I'd often think of them as twins, they were so close to each other. There must be a big empty space in her life now. I'm glad she planted a neem tree, I hope it sends some healing air her way. Breathe deep, sweetie.

Tree #3: A nutmeg tree in Udupi, India

People, you're supposed to TELL me when you plant the trees. I don't actually have psychic vibes and telephathic connections with them. (Well, not yet).

Anyway I'm happy to report, thanks to my bhabhi Zeenat's casual mention yesterday that they'd planted two trees for me a while back in Udupi - that I now require just .. oh .. 38 more .. sigh.

Zeenat is my dear cousin Ashraf Bhai's wife, and they are down here for a holiday with their daughter Zinan (Tree #4 is her contribution by the way). Zeenat is also Mehran's mother. Some of you may remember that sweet bright and unbelievably cheerful little boy who was here in Bangalore with us two years ago for his cancer treatment. He passed away last October.

This sums it up.

“If velvet could speak, it would sound like Rickman.”

- Sandy Bauers, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Cigarette:

Another one of those scratched-out poems, that I wrote a year after the last one. Kind of forlorn and bitter.

Virgin white with burning tip
Glows with passion at my lips
In go my hopes
And out my dreams in a
puff of smoke.
Watch flecks of time drift
away
And faces form and fade
Then crush, and crush
beyond recognition
And leave it
forgotten in its black ash
graveyard.

(Written at 4.53 pm 1st June 1988)

Return of the red-nosed.

At long last .. Gladys has returned from an extremely lengthy tea party with the Queen (she could have pinched an ashtray from Buckingham Palace for me but no, all she did was stick that red nose on and take up where she left off).

The voice is not better, actually - still gives me trouble from time to time and I do need to go on one of those silent treatments again, but I have too much to say! So for now, I'm just carrying on. But I will do my best to keep Gladys from jabbering as much as she usually does. We shall see. She tends to get carried away and forgot all about my poor vocal chords.

But she is all set to start working again and I can't bear to deprive her (and the world) of her delightful presence. So this weekend sees the start of a new assignment. I shall be driving Gladys and Miss Rose down to the paediatric ward of a cancer hospital this Saturday. They are both very excited and a bit nervous too. Clowning in the paediatric ward of a general hospital is one thing, where the faces are different every time you visit. At a cancer hospital, we'll be seeing patients who are in for longer stretches of time. We'll get to know them, and probably love them. And not all of them will make it.

I wonder if clowns cry.

Tree #2: A cherry tree in Bangalore, India

I should have posted this a few days ago, but have been down with the 'flu.

My friend Sukanya's DAUGHTER is really responsible for the planting of this tree. Apparently Anahita is an avid bird-lover and amateur bird-watcher, and wanted this particular tree to attract the sunbirds. Wise and wonderful child, we need more of your kind on this planet!

And who is Sukanya, you might ask? Especially you of the good old days .. and oh, there have been many different types of good old days in Nazu's life. Sukanya is a friend of the good not-so-old days, we bumped into each other some years ago at a workshop for NGOs (not that I or Askios are NGOs .. we are more of an NGO-groupie and we tag along wherever the NGOs go, and try to be useful). Anyway, Sukanya and I bumped into each other and became friends, and now we continue to bump into each other every so often at one workshop or another.

Shameful, really, because we live in the same city. But now that our friendship has been so beautifully and symbolically rooted, I must pack my water-bottle and make the long trek to wherever it is she lives (I only know that it is very very far away from my part of town) so that I can meet fellow bird-lover Anahita and take a nice picture of us all under our tree!

When a witness smiles

Years and years ago, okay, decades, my father decided to frame a print of the Mona Lisa, and put her up on our living room wall. She terrified me. Especially when I had to switch off the light in one corner and then stumble my way past her to my bedroom.Thirty years later, and Lisa (we're not on a first-name basis) is back with me, the frame a bit battered, but otherwise unchanged, unwrinkled, and just as terrifying. Although as an adult, I found I can bravely out-stare her in the daytime. It's at night when her expression seems to somehow go EVIL and her eyes follow me oh so creepily.I tried covering her up at night, as I do my birds. But that entailed having to go up really close to the picture, tablecloth grasped nervously in hand. Then I tried painting a red nose on her, which actually did improve the situation. But then I got to thinking and remembering how this fear of her eyes goes way back, and it brought back feelings and with it, a kind of resentment. And now she is off the wall, and soon, I hope, out the door. And this is why.

Her eyes followed me
through the rape of my childhood.
All she did was watch.

"Caress

I was going to say something cynical about getting back to the mushy stuff .. but I'll let it pass on this. I wrote this for Bops, of course, and I think I entered it in a poetry competition at Christ College's Spring Fest that year. Did not win, evidently .. and soon after I lost Bops too .. was whisked away from Bangalore in an attempt by my desperate parents to save me from that terrible Coorgi boy who had ruined my life (and by a strange coincidence, his equally desperate parents were at the very same time hugely relieved to see the departure of that terrible Muslim girl who had ruined their son's life). After writing this, I don't think I wrote any poems for a long time.

Caress.

Do falling stars grant wishes?
Do twilight dreams come true?
My nightmares turn to golden dust
with a soft caress from you.

You give my dawns their hope,
Carried on fresh breeze.
You give my afternoons theirlanguid warmth.
You bring my nights their peace.

One look, one word, one gentle touch
And all my dreams come true
I want to live forever
If forever means with you.

(for Bops Feb/Mar? 1987. Spring Fest).

I can't be cynical about this one. It's too sweet and it brings up too much sadness, and although I can no longer connect to those feelings, it touches me that I once was the person who said this and meant it, and that gives me a sense of loss .. not so much for him, but for that Me that I no longer am.

The prodigal clown.

Yes, Gladys is back. (Or will be, soon). Clearly I am not just clown, poet, warrior .. I am also drama queen.

So after all the melodrama and fond farewells to Gladys I have discovered that my vocal chords are going to heal after all, and that with some exercise and self-restraint, I will once again be able to fill the air with that delectably shrill Cockney accent!

For the moment, though, my voice is far from alright, and every phone conversation leaves me feeling as though I have peanuts stuck in my throat. So I still have to be careful, and have to do that silent thing at least two days every week, but at least I know that Gladys will soon be back from having tea with the Queen (which is what I tell anyone who asks where she's disappeared to).

"Now that it's night ...

Now that it's night
You can let your fears out
The darkness will cover your scars
You can pull off your mask
And breathe free at last.

You can straighten your shoulders
Stick out your chest
Tuck in your stomach
And walk like the rest
(As you'd like to, by day.)

You can smoke all your pot
You can drink all your booze
To try keep your mind off your Freudian blues
You can lie down and wait for your dreams to come true
But watch out, cause they sneak in a nightmare or two.

You can't look in the mirror
You hate what you see
so you go for a walk
And pretend that you're free.

And you look at the moon, the stars and the clouds
But you're not man enough yet to cry out aloud
Though you know that the morning
is just a different kind of night -
And if you don't remove the shutters
You won't see any light.

(Jan 21st 1987, Madras, at Mardi Gras).

Once Upon Turning Soft White Bread

Once upon turning soft white bread into crisp brown toast, I was reminded of diamonds. Little chunks of carbon that we'd think are irrelevant. I suspect that, like carbon, we think the crushes, burns and dark lonely eons of childhood are irrelevant, but they're not. They're what we have to go through to become the people we are today. Only a very few have ever come out of that process without black spots or other flaws. Maybe none of us. But we can still be diamonds.

Snape fanfic: Just Plain Luna

Delightful fanfic by The Treacle Tart, written in 2006, supposedly post-DH .. The full title is Implausible, Irrational And Just Plain Luna .. Snape is in Azkaban, but rescued by a now adult Luna Lovegood and taken to a world that only Luna could have conjured.

"Everything looked like it was made of marshmallow, gooey marshmallow. Worst of all, everything was unnaturally pink. In the midst of it all stood Severus Snape in all his black-cloaked glory, standing out like a mortician in a three-ring circus."

And this ..

"She slid her small hand into his and gently guided him back outside. Against his better judgment he allowed her to do so, partly because he truly felt he had no choice, and he hadn't the strength to fight her or this place any longer, but also partly because he liked the way her hand fit in his. It had been decades since someone held his hand."

Oh .. my heart wrings a bit every time I read that. Really, JKR, couldn't you have been just a bit nicer to him?? Well, never mind .. fortunately we have all these fan-ficcers giving Snape the lives and loves he deserves. Er .. sometimes a bit MORE than he deserves .. but you shan't be seeing any of THOSE links here as some of my friends who read this blog are innocent schoolgirls.

Well, schoolgirls, at any rate.

So you won't find any pornography here. Perhaps just a kiss or two. And Treacle Tart obliges in this fanfic and makes me wish I was Luna (instead of just plain lunatic).

A tree poem from Puerto Vallarta.

David and Liz Garlick are longtime friends of my parents, from way back when (the 1960s I suppose) in the days of Awali, Bahrain. I must have met them as a baby, but I'm not sure. But they've been one of my life's "traditions" because every year they would send us a long Christmas letter, with photographs and stories of their family (and they still do!)

So as a little girl and then a teenager and then an adult, I would always look forward to their letter. It is a bit magical to get that letter every year, to see how their children grew, where they went, what they did, their highs and lows, their joys and griefs, their gifts and their losses.

Eventually, I too starting writing back to them, and now thanks to email, manage to keep in touch more than once annually. When I wrote to them about my PlantMeATree dream, they wrote back to assure me that there would soon be a fruit tree growing for me at their home in Canada.

David - who is a poet and sends me some of his beautiful writing from time to time - also sent me this poem that he had written during one of his many travels:

A TREE.

A tree on a hill.
Not on the crest, just on the side.
There are many other trees
higher up, lower down.
I will never be a huge tree;
just a tree!
A breeze wafts, my leaves flutter.
A wind blows, my branches move
and my leaves speak.
A gale blasts and my twigs fall,
my leaves are rent.
The rain slants!
It is wet, it cleans
but I do not understand this.
I do not care anyway.
It happens!
I am a tree.
Nothing more.
Only small plants are less.
I do not think.
I do not care.
It does not matter;
for I am just a tree.

David Garlick.
Puerto Vallarta, Feb. 2001.

"The mirror's shattered ...

Here's another embarrassing one - also scratched out with the words "iddhu yena" scribbled underneath! (That's Kannada or perhaps Tamil, I'm not sure, for what amounts to "what the hell is this crap?"

I have realised that at this point, I have moved on from tortured adolescence into not-much-more-mature tortured adulthood. I was 21 when I wrote this. Oh dear. I mean, iddhu yena.

The mirror's shattered.
The spell's broken.
The unspeakable has been spoken.
No use for charms and amulets now.
Where have the gentle caresses
And soft whispers gone?
Is everything over?
And am I really and truly alone?
I am so very lost
Without you.

(Written on 29/1/1987, 4.10 p.m. Presumably after some wrenched-apart-from-Bops time of my life. I wonder why I always insist on writing the exact time I finish a poem?)

Snape fanfic: King's Pawn

"King's pawn, Severus. Considered in chess to be one of the most important and dangerous pieces in the beginning of the game. Always kept close to protect its ruler, the King. Almost always the first to be moved, and almost always the first to be destroyed."

- by ?

Nicely written fanfic. Snape compares the two men who dictate his life - his master, the Dark Lord and his friend, the Headmaster - and finds a common thread.

"I am manipulated by the man I call Master, and the man I call friend."

This fanfic is in two vignettes, and I love the single word that sums up so much at the end of each. Something potent and chilling about them: and the last word gets to be Snape's. Can't tell you more than that, dears, it would be a spoiler and I want you to read King's Pawn for yourself!

No wonder I have a paunch

I have been thinking lately, of some of the not so delicious experiences life sends me. Not that I've never thought of them before. But lately I've begun to see just how much more they were, beyond their face value of bad times or difficult challenges or cruel accidents.Recently I lost my voice and was told that I would have to be careful with it for the rest of my life. For someone who works as a clown, with funny voices, song, music, laughter and noise all being essential accessories for my clown character (you can read about her at My Nose Is Blogged, by the way), this was not very happy-making news.So I subsided, silently, into misery for a while. Or perhaps subsided, miserably, into silence for a while - doctor's orders: total voice rest. The enforced silence gave me the opportunity to see what it's like for someone who can't speak. On the bright side, I spent a lot more time than usual, writing and practising the piano, and got loads of laundry and other housework done.The most frustrating part was the way people treated me. Most talked to me as if my I.Q. had suddenly dropped, or shouted their words out as if my ears had given out along with my voice. Some would over-enunciate, imagining that I needed to lip-read. It would have been nice if THEY could lip-read. In the end, it was easier to stay home and be alone.Without a voice, anger suddenly began to feel very very loud. Whenever I got angry, I could physically feel its heat inside me. I had no voice to express it: scribbling down one's indignation on a memo pad just doesn't have the same effect. And so I learned something about something I knew nothing of before; I have often sensed a type of anger in people with disabilities and I think I understand that a bit better now. It's one thing to know something intellectually - "Oh yes, I understand why .. ", but it's so different when you know it with your emotions.That started me thinking of other experiences in my life - I've often been aware that they are "lessons" or "learning experiences", but I never quite thought about this word: EMPATHY.

Each hurt nurtures me.
Little bites of empathy.
Everything tastes good.

So having been in an abusive relationship makes me look at survivors of domestic violence with greater respect and less judgment. And even being sexually abused as a child: would people be turning to Askios the way they do if they were not reassured that I too know their pain?Years ago, I had a little mantra I would repeat to myself when things went wrong, "everything works out for the best". Now I have a haiku that says the same thing.

"I'm an orphaned child ...

This poem I found scratched through rather viciously with with the words, "Yuk not worth reading!" scrawled underneath. But I'm being brave enough to post all my poems, even the ones that bare soul and secrets, so I shouldn't be scared of adding this. So here it is. I don't actually remember what it's about, but I'm assuming that I must have had a fight with Bops, or perhaps broken things off with him in an attempt to get off smack. Or perhaps he just went away to Coorg and I missed him. Who knows. Maybe the poem wasn't written for him at all. Maybe I was turkeying and wrote this to smack?

I'm an orphaned child,
A widow.
A bottle floating endlessly in the sea.
I'm the last lost dinosaur
Crying and calling for no one to hear.
I'm the final dry leaf
That falls from the withered limbsof a tree
Come back to me
I don't want to be free.

(Written on 29/1/1987. 4.20 pm.)

The Abyss Gazes Also.

"He does not resist.
He does not hope.
He does not die."

- lunalein

I'm not too sure who wrote this "fanfic", the link says it's by
violet, but the site I found it on says it's by lunalein aka
tangleofthorns. Well whoever wrote it, s/he is brilliant I think.
I love the style of writing, and the creative concepts of both
this and the other story I found by the same author.

The Abyss Gazes Also is about Azkaban and the Dementors,
and is a wonderful exploration of the thoughts and experiences
of Sirius Black and other prisoners there. Very well written
and such a satisfying read. Here's another quote from it,
about Bellatrix:

"She doesn't flinch. Not even as her Dementor vanishes, and the metal begins to burn her. Scar tissue is the hardest kind to harm."

How the Tree-thing all started.

I remember very little of my childhood, which is a pity, because alongside the bad, I've missed out on the good. Much of my life, I've pretended to remember, nodding and laughing at stories I've put together from other people's anecdotes or old photographs. So I don't really remember the planting of the first tree. It was a magnolia of some sort, I think. The ones with those big waxy white flowers that smell so heavenly. In Urdu, it's called 'franjipani'. My father planted it just inside the gate of House 429 in Awali, Bahrain. It doesn't matter that I don't remember the planting of it, though, because over the years, every time we drove down to Awali, we would pass our old house, and seeing the tree that Daddy planted was a significant part of every drive. I'm sure I have a picture of it somewhere. I hope it is still growing. It must be around 40 years old now, just a bit younger than I am.

My father was a planter of trees. And so, every house that we've lived in, that had a patch of earth, would be home not just to us, but to the trees my father would plant and leave behind as a legacy. In Gufool, in the 80s, it was two 'gulmohars' (Flame of The Forest), one of which was still as glorious as ever the last time i saw it. In Adliya in the 90s, it was a lemon tree in the backyard and more gulmohars flanking the front gate.

At our first Indian home, the Awali township's namesake here in Bangalore, the trees have gone, replaced by a rather glossy commercial building that I'd ask you to please not begrudge - that building makes it possible for me to work full time on Askios (my voluntary job on CSA awareness). And now, at the new family home 'Dilmun', there are many new trees - a custard apple tree that's already borne two seasons of fruit, the 'kari-pattha' tree whose leaves I meet at lunch most days, a remarkable drumstick tree that has seen thousands of sticks distributed over the years to friends and neighbours - and that brings delightful little brown and yellow bee-eaters twittering to its flowers, a lime tree that gave up the ghosts just this year - and of course its heir Tree #1, the new lime tree planted a few days ago.

I've inherited my father's eyes and feet. His ability to make a great tomato jam. His artistic skills. His way with birds. And his tree-planting tendencies. Back in Abu Ghazaal in 2000, I turned a rubbishy old back yard into a fertile little garden and have left behind 6 ficuses growing in a row there, as well as a citrus tree and bougainvillea in the plots around the sides of my house. I often wonder how they grow (and would love it if a Bahrain-based friend who knows where I lived, could pop in and check on them for me!)

Barren spinster I may be, but I'm going to leave behind a hell of a lot of trees!

Snape Fanfic: The Blade

"Have I not paid? I have given my all to the light, that I might live in dark. I have given to the dark, that I might aid the light."

- aldalindil

Just found a lovely little piece on Whitehound's site. It's short and quite magical. The Blade is not really a story, it's just words put together quite poetically, a random musing that creates a picture of Snape that I love. It's by someone called aldalindil, and was written in 2002, which is interesting because she presents the Snape we got to know only in the later books.

Go there now!

"Where do all the dead babies go ..

Where do all the dead babies go?
In some bright garden my son runs free
Laughs and plays with all the others
that were never meant to be
I wonder if he remembers
Gently stirring in my womb before -
And if it hurt him as much as it hurt me, or more?
I want him never to know, never to miss
A mother's touch, a mother's kiss.
For one day I may hold his sister or brother,
But he can never have another mother.

(Written on Jan 17th Sat. 1987, 9:50 pm.)

In case you are wondering, I have never been pregnant.

Snape. A severely good site on him.

I must tell you about Severely Severus, which is an excellent site created by a wonderful human being who goes by the name Whitehound, who has put together a glorious listing of really nice fanfics - nothing x-rated, and all the ones she's selected present Snape in true character.

What is Snape in true character, you might ask? Well, as far as I'm concerned it's most-amazing-man-that-never-walked-the-earth-albeit-a-sarcastic-unfriendly-dark-scary-batlike-greasy-haired-git-who-never-got-enough-sunshine. Just got to love him.

A tree story from Hungary.

A friend of mine wrote to me today after receiving my PlantMeATree email. Peter and his wife Ildi are good friends of mine from my days in advertising. Peter worked with me, and they were also my neighbours, living just down the road in Abu Ghazaal. Many warm memories of the times we spent together -exotic sweet spring rolls made with jackfruit and jam, wandering through the Isa Town souq chasing birds, tearfully translating Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham to an equally tearful listener (that was Ildi not Peter!), agonising over brochure amendments and the suits that brought them to us, my first taste of rosehips, discovering Hungarian music and oh-so-long words. And those of you who have seen my "poet" picture (the one where I'm fleeing the ocean with a tablecloth for a cape) may be interested toknow that it was Ildi who captured that moment on film.

Well, in today's email, Peter wrote the following and I thought it was too lovely not to add to this blog. Peter, I hope you don't mind me quotingyou here!

"it's a strange coincidence with your wish as a birthday present and witha tree in our garden. perhaps you remember that we discussed particularly the different kinds of fruits. once i listed all the trees and bushes in our garden. there was one tree i couldn't name in english. looking up in the dictionary it gave me the word: naseberry-tree. since then i've treated our loved tree as naseberry and it always reminded me of you. we noticed that its name sounds like nazu. apparently the dictionary was incorrect it is a medlar tree as i got to know recently. naseberry is a tropical fruit no matter how similar it is to a medlar. however this plant will remain to be a nazu tree."

So there already is a Nazu tree?! A pre-42 Nazu tree! And Peter and Ildi have assured me that come spring, they will be planting another specially for me. It will be a poplar that promises to grow tall. One day I shall sit under it with my friends and a big plate of hot jackfruit rolls ..

"The pain ..

The pain in my heart
Echoes the pain in my womb
Dark drops of blood
Mime the tears I'm not supposed to cry
I'm lonelier than I was before
Would you have looked like me?
Or did you have his eyes?
One day I shall show your little sister
All the things I was waiting to show you
Teach her the songs you were going to sing
Call her name and think of yours
That only you and I know.

(Written on 29/11/86)

After reading the comment that followed this, I felt I ought to clarify that I've  never had a  miscarriage, and never been pregnant.

Snape. He does not really look like he looks.

The Snape in my head, that is. It's the Snape of the books that I'm mad about, not the Snape of the movies. Alan Rickman is a fine man, I'm sure, and lustworthy in his own way. And in the movies, all I get are snapshots of Snape. The personality comes across so much better in the books.

But I will say one thing for Alan Rickman: That VOICE...I don't know if Mr. Rickman always sounds like that, or if his "Snape voice" is only for the Harry Potter movies. But that voice IS Snape. It's a rich chocolate mousse voice.

And if you don't know what I mean by that, visit Cafe Y on Langford Road in Bangalore, and order the chocolate mousse. It's orgasmically delicious.

Tree #1: A lime tree in Bangalore, India.

The first tree is from my parents, and was planted this afternoon,
in their garden. It's a sapling of a lime tree - what we call "neembu"
here. I now have two neembus - I also have a budgerigar named
Neembu - she's lutino (yellow all over) and is exactly the same
colour as the limes we get here.

Daddy supervised the planting, while Krishna (yes, who used
to work for us when we were in Bahrain - he's here on holiday
and came to visit) did the digging. Daddy insisted that I should
be the one to place the sapling in the earth. Krishna patted down
the earth and watered it, and within half an hour, I like to think
Nature showed its appreciation with a lovely little finale --
 a light shower of rain.

Edited 11 Apri 2014

Plant me a tree!

This year, I turn 42, and I couldn't think of a nicer
birthday present than a garden of trees growing for me around
the world. Over the next year, I hope to find 42 people who
will plant and nurture a tree for me.

Here's what I want you to do:

1. Find me a tree: a sapling of any tree you think appropriate.

2. Next, find me a spot: a space waiting in your garden, perhaps.
Or a neighbourhood corner. Maybe even a large pot for your
balcony (some trees will grow in pots - though not as large
and healthy as those planted in the ground).

3. Take a picture when you plant it, and send me a copy
of the picture, along with a bit of information about the tree -
what tree it is, where you got it and how, why you chose
this particular tree, and anything else you'd like to say.
And in the future, at least once a year, send me a picture
with the tree in it, so that we can all see how it's growing.
You could also send pictures in different seasons, if you like.

4. Look after it for me. Let it grow as long and as strong
as it can, so that there will always be a bit of green for
someone who feels they may never see enough.

The last thing on my mind.

A few years ago, I was being rushed to Manipal Hospital in
a screaming ambulance early one morning, with a suspected
brain haemorrhage. Needless to say, I'm still here: the cerebral
irritation, though still a mystery, turned out not to be a haemorrhage
after all. At the time, though, everyone thought I was dying. I did too.

Lying in that ambulance, blacking out and coming to, over
and over, on waves of pain, the thought calmly came to me:
I think I'm dying. And: Shouldn't this be more dramatic?
But no, it wasn't. It was a quiet, oh-well kind of resignation.

I looked up through the window and saw treetops streaming
past as the ambulance raced me across town, and it struck me
that dying meant I would never see trees again. So I looked
and looked at the trees, trying to stay conscious and keep
my eyes open to take in as much of the green as I could -
while I could.

And then I lived! So now, I never ignore a tree.

Say Goodbye, Gladys.

This was the code-line, to be used whenever Gladys talked too much, or needed to be informed that it was time to move on to another patient. I'd always tell people that if they got tired of the Gladys act, all they had to do was tell her: "Say goodbye, Gladys!" and that would be the cue - Gladys would obediently say "Goodbye, Gladys!" and then I'd snap out of the Gladys act and go back to being Nazu.

But today it's different. Oddly enough, I'm at a loss for words. In more ways than one. For someone who doesn't usually have a problem writing, I'm having a hard time putting this down. So perhaps let's just say it. Gladys is out.

Well, she'll always be there, wandering around the corridors of my head no doubt. But no more clowning as Gladys, that's what I mean. Long story about damaged vocal chords and I think I already went into that in the last post, so I won't repeat myself. Basically - for the next three to six months, I have to very careful with my voice. I've spent the last week in total silence, visited the doc again today, and now for the next fortnight have permission to speak a few words at a time, "only when absolutely necessary", along with various other instructions, medicines and even a series of calcium injections that my bum will play host to. Ouch. (Those of you who are wondering, no, calcium supplements won't do. I already asked.)

No singing, no wind instruments, no Gladys. At least for the next few months. I would really miss singing my favourite Christmas carols. And I'm already missing my flute. I'm hoping that the flute will be the first thing I'll be allowed to use again, once my vocal chords are sorted out.

But hey! Clowns think positive! And I can look forward to developing a new, silent clown character! There's always hope! Who knows, the new clown may be even funnier than Gladys ever was.

Not too many people will miss my incessant talking. My music teacher Mrs. Thomas told me years ago that I had "verbal diarrhoea". I shall have to inform her that I am now severely constipated. Actually, I won't miss the incessant talking, myself. I think it's a good thing, to have to ration out one's spoken words - perhaps it will make me choose my words better, think before I talk, bring more value to what I have to say. But I will miss Gladys. Just won't be the same without that funny voice and that brilliant wit. She was, pretty much, all voice. So I can't just turn her into a silent clown. There needs to be a new persona for that.

So goodbye, Gladys. And perhaps my next post will say hello to someone new.

Aah.

Snape Fanfic: 12 Steps Against Inertia

"..her hair will make beautiful roots, he thinks.."

- tsubaki-hana

12 Steps Against Inertia is a well-written fanfic that starts with Snape's childhood.

It's by tsubaki-hana, written on 5 August 2007, is a one-shot, and (sniff) tragedy. Contains Deathly Hallows spoilers so if you haven't finished reading that, you may want to wait before clicking on the link.

Gifts for Gladys.

A dear friend has just come down to visit from London, and she brought me some wonderful gifts for Gladys - red and white striped clown stockings, three glorious (and easily washable) pairs of colourful gloves in pink, yellow and orange (gardening gloves .. who'd have thunk? They're perfect!) and a multi-coloured pair of suspenders.

It was all deliciously exciting (oh yes, she also brought me two packets of an old favourite of mine: Rowntree's Fruit Gums) .. but horribly frustrating to have to react silently!

Talking of silent (talking?), I am in the process of developing a new clown character. I'm hoping that once my voice recovers, Gladys can be revived - perhaps with her Cockney accent intact, but with her pitch more at my normal speaking tone. But just in case - I wouldn't want this problem to resurface and then become chronic, for I do like having a voice - I am also trying to bring someone new to life. This new someone would be male, and silent. Let's see .. will work on costume, look, and of course name, tomorrow.

Snape Fanfic: Midsummer's Eve

A one-shot (i.e. full story in one chapter) by ReeraTheRed, written on 1 August 2003. Midsummer's Eve is about Snape as a 15-year-old, going back to his ancestral home to carry out one final task. Stars Snape and Dumbledore and is rated PG with angst and intense emotions. Which basically means if you're a Snape fan, you'll be feeling a bit weepy and wounded at the end of it. Quite nicely written, and I enjoyed reading it. Sad but good.

Snape. (Obviously).

He's definitely penetrated my mind.

How could he not have? Brilliant. Dark. Wounded. Nasty. Heroic.

Yes, it's official. I am obsessed with Severus Snape. Gloriously obsessed. No matter what JKR thinks of him, as far as I'm concerned, he's the real hero of the Harry Potter stories. So this space is going to be where I mumble my way through all thoughts Snape. I'll probably post links to my favourite Snape fanfics here too. But now, to bed. All that Legilimens has given me a headache.

(Note from the future, i.e. Jan 2008 - July 21st 2007 was when JK Rowling released the last of the Harry Potter books. I had spent the previous week re-reading and catching up on the other six, and then locked myself away for 10 glorious hours - well, actually, some of them were not glorious - I wept MUCH and also forgot to have lunch) and the end result was clearly an overdose of all things Potteresque but mostly Snape. Ah, Snape. A new blog seemed only too appropriate and so on August 8, 2007 "Obviously" was created (refer his words to Dolores Umbridge in Book 5 to "get" it).
(in July 2008 I changed the labels for these posts from 'Obviously' .. you will now find them variously under Snape, fanfic, Potter)

Shut up, Gladys.

Bad news, I think. Those of you who've had the honour to meet Gladys in person, will know that she talks in a high-pitched Cockney accent. And I've just found out that doing that for 2 or 3 hours at a stretch is not really the greatest thing for my vocal chords.

So here I sit in silence. It started with a little lump in my throat that didn't hurt but wouldn't go away. Finally got the courage to go see a doctor about it. The good news is that I don't have throat cancer. The bad news is that I must have total voice rest for at least a week.

That means no talking. (And those of you who've had the honour to meet ME in person, will know just how hard that is!) It's very strange. Very funny. And very frustrating. It's less than 24 hours since I succumbed to silence, and it is So Damn Difficult.

Plus everyone has started to talk really loud (I'm not deaf, just mute) and also speaking in one-word sentences and waving their arms around with lots of gestures and what appears to be their idea of sign language. I now must carry a note around to remind people that just because I can't talk, doesn't mean they can't use full sentences.

What will happen to Gladys? I don't know. After the swelling's gone down, I'll have to do some speech therapy exercises or something. And then we'll just have to see. Oh, I'd miss Gladys. I don't think she'd like being a mime quite as much.

"All These Tears ...

Oh I am so glad I grew up. Young people reading this, please know: LOVE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS. This is just desperate codependent angst-ridden obsession. I can't believe I actually thought like this once.

All these tears just beneath
the surface
are waiting to break through
if I'd only let them flow
if I could only let you go

But I've sworn to stay beside you
Even if you turn away
And if I have no tomorrows
At least I have had today.

I can cling to my dreams
As I cling to you now
And my dreams may never come true
But at least I have loved you

Everything has a price
And I am quite willing to pay
I would not exchange my
grey tomorrows
For the moments of ecstacy and sparkle of today.

( 9/86)

"Do You Believe"

Reading these poems today, I feel almost irritated at myself. This next one, I want to go back in time and shake myself by the shoulders and tell me that I needed to ask such questions to myself, not somebody else. This is another poem for Bops, written in that worst year of my life. Perhaps I'm too hard on myself. Perhaps I DID write it for myself, but never knew.

Do you believe in miracles?
Do kisses waken sleeping beauties?
Do falling stars grant your wishes?
Does God answer prayers?
I don't know.
I believe in you.
And I wish you did too.

Written in September 1986, for Bops

Once Upon Eavesdropping

Once, upon eavesdropping, my heart broke. Curiosity doesn't always kill. Sometimes, it just hurts a little. All I heard were three words. There were more than those three words, though, carrying over the darkness between their building and mine. I can't remember the other words, her parents' words, though they were louder and shriller, and more.

My three words, the ones that made me stand at my balcony and weep, were softer, and they came from a child. They broke my heart and I cried my tears at last, with her and for her.

"Mummy, don't cry."

I cried for her future, not just for her present. And maybe I cried for my past.

Where the hell is Gladys?

I have been SO busy of late. And sick too. Not horribly. But as those of you who follow this blog know, a cough, cold or upset stomach is a big no-no on the job, so I haven't been clowning for nearly 3 weeks. I do miss Gladys. But if all goes well, she should be back in action this Tuesday at Philomena's. Must go check all her clothes and props are ready.

Meanwhile, here is a lovely pic from the Alliance show we had in June, it was taken by a young journalist Rajiv Bangera who covered us for a new magazine that should be out in August. I think it is the sweetest picture and it sums up the heart of Gladys and Rose and what they're here for.

Howdy, parrrrrd-ner.

Cheesy, yes. And I know that many people don't appreciate Peter Sellers' The Party. It was actually BANNED in India during the 70s. I've never figured out why. It would be a bit like Britain banning Mr. Bean. I loved The Party, and never quite felt I was laughing "at" Hrundi V. Bakshi, more like "with" him. Besides, he was the nicest character in the film - innocent, self-accepting, playful, heroic, chivalrous, principled.

Ah - a clown!

But people have a hard time accepting clowns, perhaps. Recently, I had a doubly saddening experience when a recovering-alcoholic friend of mine called me up, quite drunk. Not only was I saddened and worried by his falling off the wagon, but then he went on to tell me how worried he was that I had become a clown!

Huh?Apparently my wonderful ability to switch between Nazu and Gladys had him frantically fearing the disappearance of Nazu altogether, leaving the world with Gladys alone. Hmmm. Gladys is lovely but I'm not about to hand over my life to her!

Anyway, I take that as a compliment and affirmation of my acting abilities! But apart from this, he also went on to talk about how clowning was not only harmful (as in the danger of the clown in you taking over a la The Exorcist) but also how humiliating it was.

Of course, he was drunk, so this was coming from a somewhat unclear mind, on top of his own perceptions or projections about what a clown is and does. To me, there's nothing humiliating about being a clown. It's wonderfully freeing, and to me, the most noble profession I could have stumbled across. My plastic red nose shares living quarters with the Rolex my dad bequeathed to me when he retired. And is just as precious.

Perhaps the people who banned The Party had the same perceptions and projections about the character of Hrundi V. Bakshi. Which brings me back to why I've titled this post as I did.

Severine and I are now partners - we signed a contract today and will run the Dr Clown India program together. All voluntary and honorary and all that (as in 'no money') but oh so rewarding and so much fun. I am HUGELY excited about it. And also about having Severine as a partner - she's a wonderful person and a brilliant clown, and I think we complement each other so well, I can't wait to see how we develop Dr Clown. (And if you can't wait either, then keep checking in here to find out how it's going.)

Once Upon Dusty Floorboards

Once upon dusty floorboards, I smelt a rose, and thought of trees.

To be honest, it wasn't once upon, it was just yesterday, in my acting class. I sat on the floor, breathing heavily - no, gasping, if I remember correctly - after some ghastly and very sadistic body work exercise that had us all running, hopping, waving our arms about and sweating a lot.

I thought of trees as I ran my fingers over old and new nails pounded through the wooden panel flooring of this little hall at Baldwin Boys' School. I wondered how many trees were part of the hall. And how long they had been there. I wondered what the panels might have looked like when they were new, when they were somebody's pride, to be waxed and polished on a regular basis. I wondered if the soul and spirit of each tree was still present there in those boards. Is wood dead? As long as it is still wood, perhaps that inner energy and wisdom of the tree is still within, ebbing slowly, very slowly, as the years go by and the wood wears down and years of dust and indifference gradually stifle it.

And once upon those dusty floorboards - still yesterday - I smelt a rose, although I did not see one: just a slender stalk and three leaves still perfect. The rose had gone, perhaps crumpled into someone's pocket or hymn book or cleavage. The stalk with its three leaves lay there so prettily and poignantly, I had to pick it up. And was rewarded with the divine fragrance of the long-gone rose, still clinging to those leaves.

I must have used it all up, because no one else who took a whiff could smell that fragrance. Perhaps it was just meant for me.

Before the show.

Here are a few pix from rehearsals at the Alliance Francaise before our show.The first pic is of Biclown and Gladys with the little French "pixies" who put on a wonderful acrobatic routine with Fabiola and Miss Rose on The Planet of Acrogaz.

Next we have Mamu looking very happy with his lady friends from the Planet of Fire! Fabiola (the pixies' leader is second from right, and if your eyesight is better than mine, you'd already have noticed Miss Rose peeking in from behind.Finally Miss Rose in one of her delightful specially tailored outfits (Calvin Klown, I think) with Eric, director of Alliance, a man who appears to be a sedate professional here, but later turned into an hilarious Crowd Checker at the show, armed with his feather duster to dust the heads of people in the audience (and Gladys, much to her surprise!) after zooming around the stage and ramps on his bicycle and honking a wonderful bulb horn!

I must get me one of those horns. They take me back to my childhood when every self-respecting auto rickshaw was equipped with one. Nowadays all the autos have those irritating hi-tech buttons that go "nyeet-nyeet-nyeet", and I do so miss the mellow "pwarrrrmp" of those old bulb horns.

Gladys goes to Alcatraz.

Or so she thought. There she was, clowning merrily, when suddenly a stern security guard informed her that she was wanted in the Administration department. Well, the nose was on and there were children present, so I couldn't come to her rescue. So off she went, calling for her lawyer and her mummy, and trying to get "the policeman" to handcuff her. Needless to say, the children and other patients found all this quite funny.

Finally, in the administration dept, the nose came off and all was revealed. It was a simple case of miscommunication, or in this case, no communication. The ward sister hadn't been informed about Dr Clown's visits, so when she saw Gladys and Mamu clomping happily down her corridors, she must have thought, "Who on earth are these two clowns?" (literally!) and called Security!

All sorted out amicably, once we explained that we had the approval of both the hospital director and the head of paediatrics. There were a few extra journeys up and down because the Security guy's colleagues hadn't been updated and so they refused to let the clowns back in to the wards! Gladys being a lady of some leisure waited and blew bubbles while Mamu chivalrously made these perilous trips back and forth to prove their innocence.

Eventually got back in, and the whole funny little mishap ended up making us all good buddies. Unfortunately we've not had the opportunity to go clowning there since (do hope they don't think we're sulking or scared of), as one week Mamu had a cold, one week we were tied up with rehearsals for our show, and then last week I had a bad stomach. (We don't go clowning if we have any such illnesses, so that there is no risk of passing infections to sick children whose resistance is already compromised).

But joy! Tomorrow is Tuesday, Mamu and Gladys both seem to be fine, and we shall head for St Phil's at 10.30 a.m. inshallah! Stay tuned .. though I really should write about the show first. Major clown backlog. But my Filofax will keep me on track ..

Learning from Forrest's grandfather.

This is pilgrimage.
Journeying not to, but with.
Destination: me.

We're always on some path. Every breath is another step forward, right? Yet we're so focused on where we're going, or where we want to be. I'm beginning to see that the travelling is more important than the arrival, and that seeking inward is more rewarding than seeking outward.

I'm reading a wonderful children's book, The Education of Little Tree; a true story by Forrest Carter, who was raised by his Cherokee (Native American) grandparents, and there is a lot in that book to inspire me. The grandfather - what a grand grandfather he must have been. I'm awed by the wisdom of his spirituality, I'm humbled by the depth in the simplicity of his ways.

Afterthought: why must the original inhabitants of that continent be called "Native" Americans? Why aren't they called Americans, and the others called Immigrant Americans? They were there from the first. Every one else arrived.

Solitude

I often wonder what it is. I seem to have it. I'm very content on my own, and I value my me-time. I love my home and my work and you could lock me in here for a month and I probably wouldn't get bored (irritable maybe, once the cigarettes ran out). Sometimes, though, I worry that I "ought" to be wildly social. Sometimes I fear that I am confusing alone and lonely. But that's not often, and usually it is other people who confuse the two and wonder how I can live alone and spend so much time alone without getting bored, scared or depressed.I do - boredom, fear, depression, loneliness: they all come into my life, and are hard to take. But there's a huge difference in my alone moments and my lonely ones. Often my loneliest moments are when I'm surrounded by other people.

Books, music, pen, paint.
Alone is easy for me.
Lonely is harder.

When I'm lonely, it's usually one or two specific special people in my life that I'm missing, not just the presence of other bodies. I guess the reason I find alone easy is because I like my own company just as much as I like the company of those special people. Goodness! I like myself! Hmmm .. I see another haiku noodle in there, but it's time to get back to work. And I've been telling myself that I need to write more authentic haiku instead of just following the syllabic count. But not today.

Over-awed by her beauty, Mamoo forgets how to take decent photographs.

Gladys is most upset. Mamoo's brave attempts to photograph her are shaky, to say the least. Seen (I use the term loosely) here, is Gladys with Prashant and Ashwita - brother and sister if I remember correctly. Fortunately my memory is not as blurry as these pictures, so I can tell you that in the first, Prashant and Gladys have struck "Don" poses in honour of Shah Rukh Clown - Gladys' boyfriend .. allegedly .. well, she does have long romantic phone conversations with him on that plastic banana she carries around.

Quite a striking chap, this Shah Rukh Clown. I was initially intrigued by his resemblance to one Shah Rukh KHAN: quite uncanny likeness, apart from the red nose. Gladys says this is because they are distant relatives, cousins of some sort. Apparently this Shah Rukh Khan cannot walk freely down the street for fear of being mobbed by fans of HER Shah Rukh. Poor man. To be nearly as irresistible as Shah Rukh Clown is, it appears, both a gift and a curse.

In the second picture, Gladys is using her stetho-ho-scope to do a laughter check on little Ashwita. Test results showed that the child was hale and ha-ha-hearty.

Have filofax. Will clown.

This is turning out to be serious business. Being a nostalgic type, I decided to go for something sentimental and, being unimpressed by Blackberrys and mutant mobile phones that can do everything except laundry, I decided to get myself Ye Olde Filofax.

The last time I owned a Filofax they were the New, In Thing. And of course, they're now called "organisers" because Filofax is really a brand name. But all those notebook sized ring-binder folders will always be Filofaxes to me. Like Hoovers and Xerox and IBMs. So I'm outdated. Shoot me.

But not this week. My Filofax says I'm too busy. It has been a hectic fortnight, so hectic I haven't time to write about my clowning - which has been going wonderfully. From an interesting episode at St Philomena's to the mad rush of rehearsals for our Docteur Clown show at Alliance Francaise, and the actual show itself. Details - including news reports and some lovely photographs - in posts to come. Watch this space.

Have filofax. Will clown.

This is turning out to be serious business. Being a nostalgic type, I decided to go for something sentimental and, being unimpressed by Blackberrys and mutant mobile phones that can do everything except laundry, I decided to get myself Ye Olde Filofax.

The last time I owned a Filofax they were the New, In Thing. And of course, they're now called "organisers" because Filofax is really a brand name. But all those notebook sized ring-binder folders will always be Filofaxes to me. Like Hoovers and Xerox and IBMs. So I'm outdated. Shoot me.

But not this week. My Filofax says I'm too busy. It has been a hectic fortnight, so hectic I haven't time to write about my clowning - which has been going wonderfully. From an interesting episode at St Philomena's to the mad rush of rehearsals for our Docteur Clown show at Alliance Francaise, and the actual show itself. Details - including news reports and some lovely photographs - in posts to come. Watch this space.

There must be something to them

It's easy enough to put men down. They're in charge and the world's a mess. They beat wives, rape children, commit most of the crimes, and start wars. BUT.I was reading through a comment on one of my other blogs, where a man said something about men not having anything to be proud of except their arrogance. I find that sad. And though there are many men I have little respect for, I don't lose hope in them entirely. There must be something more to them. They wouldn't be here if that weren't so.I look at women and see how amazing so many of them are. I think it is the struggle that does it. And I also see that those women seem to be more in touch with both their "feminine" and "masculine" qualities, are the ones who seem most completely human. Perhaps this is what men need to find: the balance between yin and yang. All that energy expended in trying to prove manhood in so many ways, when perhaps this is what prevents them from ever really finding the man within?

A man's gift is not
his penis, strength, land, weapons.
It's within, unwrapped.

Why the world needs clowns.

Have I said already how much I love being a clown? Apart from the fun of performing, dressing up, shopping, and making people laugh, I really like the philosophy behind therapeutic clowning. It's being gentle AND strong, and being vulnerable without being a doormat. I'm not sure about circus clowns, who I seem to recall getting quite boisterous with each other, but as a hospital clown, an important part of our clown characters is a certain purity and innocence that will not allow us to hurt anyone's feelings, even each others.

So when I came across the following bit of writing, it struck me that it sums up so nicely what a good clown is. We need more red noses in this world.

"People who feel good about themselves do not exploit others and are not available for exploitation. People who feel good about themselves, far from exhausting or trying the patience of their acquaintances, exhibit a veritable feast of exciting, appealing characteristics that other human beings tend to find irresistible. People who are self-accepting
.. laugh
.. listen
.. do not exploit others for their gratification
.. have energy
.. are more creative than people who hold themselves in low esteem
.. are tolerant of the changing moods of others
.. learn to live with what they cannot change
.. exude enthusiasm
.. project confidence
.. exult in the successes of their friends without feeling competitive or threatened
.. are sensitive to the needs of others
.. take appropriate risks
.. risk failure in order to find out what they have the right stuff for
.. often have an intriguing sense of depth or mystery about them
.. do not pretend to have all the answers
.. are realistically optimistic
.. do not ridicule the helpless or humiliate the weak
.. tend to make people they spend time with feel good about themselves
.. enjoy helping others and working to develop a sense of community
.. have a sense of purpose and develop the sense of a special mission in life
.. are able to turn their mistakes into lessons and begin anew.

Don't kid yourself; even people who exhibit most, if not all, of the above characteristics suffer periods of despair, disappointment and depression. Bad things do happen to good people, even those with a healthy sense of self-worth. But such people rebound."

- from "Why Love is not Enough" by Sol Gordon, PhD.

Germ-ridden Gladys stays home.

They will miss Gladys tomorrow. No clowning for me tomorrow as I am unwell. Another reason to love clowning. Back in the days of advertising, I could have 104 degrees temperature but the boss would still insist on my coming in to work. (Unless I came in without her insisting, in which case she would insist that I went home.)

But we clowns are specifically asked NOT to work when we're sick, even if "sick" is just a cold, cough or sore throat. Because we can't take chances with passing on any germs to little kids who are already sick.

I wish people who go visit other people in hospital would do the same. I know people who'll go with great runny noses and wheezy coughs, to see newborn babies and yes .. horror of horrors, actually hold the little thing in their arms and kiss it. Little newborn babies! Those sweet little squally things with practically no immune system yet! That's nearly manslaughter! But well-meaning manslaughter. All in the name of love. All in a day's work for this human race that hasn't quite figured out what love really is. Thank God I'm a clown. We know. Or we're supposed to know, at any rate. But then, I'm only a clown part of the time. Does that make me a half-breed clown?

Clowning is serious work.

At first I thought it was "part-time". My goal is to perform three times a week and I thought that would be easy enough. But there's a bit more to it than I thought. I've discovered that there are three main aspects of clown work (four if you count the nap).

1. Hygiene
This is a Very Important aspect of hospital clowning. Before going to hospital, I have a headbath. Check nails are clean, clip if necessary, remove nail polish if necessary. Make sure EVERYTHING I take to the hospital (clown costume, bag, shoes, props) is clean, and wear a clean set of regular clothes. After I get back from hospital, there's more stuff to clean - throw all clothes - both the regular set I wore to and from, as well as my clown costume, towels, hair bands, socks, hats, cloth puppets or other cloth props - into the washing machine. Have ANOTHER headbath. While the laundry's being done, wash every prop - juggling balls, flutes, whatever, as well as make-up brushes. Wipe down bags, shoes, toiletries (cold cream, toner, talc, lotion) and make-up kit, with disinfectant. Scrub the soles of my clown shoes with hot soapy water (hospital floors have GERMS). By the time I'm done with it, the laundry's done and I put it out to dry. Later, I must steam iron my clown costume, and then put everything away in its place, usually wrapped in plastic packets (oh yeah, I rinse the plastic packets too!) and then I'm all set for my next Clown Rounds.

2. Practice
Although a lot of our clowning is based on improvisation, it makes a huge difference to have a set of well-tuned technical skills. The skills I use (or plan to use) are juggling, puppetry, music and song, and storytelling. So at least half an hour of juggling practice every day. Sing scales to keep my voice fit. Practise singing and learning lullabies (for when we go to neo-natal to visit the little babies). Practice scales on my recorder, melodica and flute - all three wind instruments (well the melodica is a reed instrument like the accordion and harmonica - but you blow into it to make sound) and also learn and practise suitable tunes and songs to play on them. These include familiar children's songs like nursery rhymes, but also Hindi film music. A lot of the children in the hospitals I visit speak primarily in Tamil, Urdu or Kannada - so I try to incorporate Hindi pop music - bouncy stuff, or sweet old classics like lori's (pronounced loh-ree .. Urdu for lullaby) by Lata Mangeshkar. I haven't yet begun working on my puppetry and story-telling, but for now the music, song and juggling practice is something I try to do every day. I also work on developing skits or props, but don't set aside a specific time for that, just do that as it comes to me.

3. Performance
If I've taken care of all the stuff in Hygiene, then this starts with loading up and driving over to hospital. If possible, have a word with the staff about patients (find out if there are any special cases, e.g. pre-op - who might be afraid and need some reassurance; or post-op - who might be in pain and could do with some light relief but perhaps not boisterous loud clowning). Then disappear into the doctors or nurses changing room and get dressed, put on make-up and accessories. Sometimes we may pick a theme to use as a guideline - e.g. today let's be Bollywood film producers, out to make a movie; today we are searching for a lost elephant; today we are doctors;) - that can help in giving some direction to our improv - but of course, it's ultimately up to what we find waiting for us when we step out as clowns. After the performance is over, we head on back, change back into regular human beings, and walk quietly out of the hospital. Although parents and staff recognise us, the children never seem to connect these normal, serious-faced people with the clowns who only a while ago were making them giggle and smile. I love that. They BELIEVE. Too bad grown-ups lose that incredible talent. Then it's back home to more Hygiene stuff.

4. The Nap
Don't laugh. Clowning can be exhausting. Post clowning, a hearty meal is required, followed by a nice long nap. It helps that most hospital clowning is done in the mornings (after doctors finish their rounds) so this means the nap is usually an afternoon nap, one of the most delightful category of naps known to humankind. And clownkind.

And there you have it, people. My clown job description.

One fine day at St. Philomena's.

First day at St Philomena's.

Miss - sorry MRS.- Rose and Gladys got off to a good start when they found a poor ailing banana who wasn't peeling well, right there in the doctors' changing room. There was a nice bed in the room, so after giving Mr. Banana a once-over with the stethoscope, they tucked him in and left him to rest.

First stop was the neo-natal ward, where the little preemies got their first taste (well sound) of French lullabies. And then onward and upward to the pediatric wards. On the way Miss Rose came upon a bunch of gloves just hanging around listlessly. 3 whole rows of them. Realising that these poor flaccid souls were in urgent need of medical attention, she gave them some music therapy, while Gladys taught them some finger physiotherapy.

On the way to the wards, Mrs. Rose stopped for an impromptu magic show. Meanwhile Mamu's driver Kishore showed up so Gladys hurried him off to the transporter room so that he could deliver Mamu asap.

And then the three went about making noise and bubbles and all sorts of antics - one of the highlights was when Gladys, looking peakish, had to lie down and Mrs. Rose took out her humongous rectal thermometer ...

Much love and laughter dispensed. Plenty of smiles all around, and one little toddler followed them about, actually guffawing with laughter. (Not a common sight, guffawing toddlers. Giggling, maybe, but guffawing quite a rare sight even for clown ornithologists). Even a crotchety cleaning lady ended up with a smile on her face, and another actually got into the act, twirling Gladys about to "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai".

Finally back in the doctors' changing room, Mamu was safely locked in the toilet for about a month while Gladys and Mrs. Rose got changed. One last check on Mr. Banana, who was looking quite rested after his peaceful nap in the doctors' bed. He's sure to have been peeling well by the afternoon.

Happy patients. Smiling nurses. Bemused passers-by. Sleeping banana. A day well spent, a job well done. And so to lunch! Exit the clowns.

Red Nose Withdrawal Syndrome.

Still waiting and it's agony! I need to clown!! Desperately!!!

Manipal Hospital requires some paperwork, and Philomena's I've been to twice already. Last time I met the hospital director Dr Shankar and the Head of Pediatrics Dr Ranjan. I introduced them to dr. Gladys and they were both quite delighted to meet her. Gladys of course was not surprised.

"I 'ave this STRANGE effect on men," she says. "I seem to put them in some kind of trance and they just stare at me in AWE."

Can't argue with that, Gladys, although I'm not sure "awe" is exactly the word.

Well, we are nearly ready to start working at St Philomena's. Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with the nursing superintendent Sister Germaine, and after that it should be all go. Can't wait!

Meanwhile dr. Rose should be back from Nepal by now and so clowny things should move quicker in general. And my lab coat, currently being stitched all over with applique flowers (to hide the ink stains .. the coat was a gift from an ex-med student), looks a bit odd. But odd is good, I suppose.

And this is all the news I have to post today. It's been more of a Warrior day than a Clown one.

A new hospital on the cards!

Yesterday I went to St Philomena's Hospital and met Dr Rajeev, a paediatrician with a very endearing smile and twinkling eyes. (Gladys says there must be a clown in him or he wouldn't look that way.) I have to go back on Monday to meet the hospital's director and also the "HOD" (found out that means Head of Department). Once they give us the authorisation, we just have to finalise which day. Dr Rajeev suggested that 12 noon is a good time, as docs would have finished their rounds, and nurses would have got done with whatever the doctors have ordered. (Actually I think later on, once we're better established with the staff, they might PREFER us to come while the nurses are drawing blood etc. because there's nothing like a good clown to make such procedures fade away from a little kid's attention.)

Dr Rajeev showed me around the pediatric sections and now I'm terribly excited and looking forward to doing clown rounds there. They have a Level III neo-natal and Level II ICU, as well as one room with 4 beds downstairs. (I was delighted to see that he washed his hands after putting on his shoes again - you have to take them off before going into the ICU and neo-natal.) Upstairs right at the end of the B Ward corridor, are two more pediatric rooms that make up the general pediatric ward - each room with about 8 beds. I'll also get to clown all the way down the corridor going back downstairs, and finally, if we have any energy left, we could also pop in to pediatric OPD.

Now I must get things ready .. a new pair of trousers to crop and patch, fill up my clown case, finish up my puppets. The juggling .. sigh .. is still abyssmal .. but eternally optimistic, I have already invested in a set of plastic bowling pins so that I can soon also be abyssmal at that too.

Ah. How I love being a clown doctor. Especially the part where you don't have to spend four years in medical college and dissect dead people, but still get to have a white coat and stethoscope and use all the fancy terminology.

"Without you ...

Dear me. In the midst of all this chemical torment, I somehow managed to be in love. I do remember that Bops and I once talked about (well, argued about) how our love was really a threesome - it was not just him and me, it was him, me and smack. And yes, it really was. With both of us feeling resentful and jealous when the other would make smack a priority over us. All quite dark and depressing, but fortunately memory is a hazy thing. Which might explain why this poem is so over the top. Oh well. Teenage love. My "first". I'm far too cynical about "love" now, but this is what I made of it back then. Of course, now I see it as immature and exceedingly emotionally unhealthy, and anything BUT love. Obsession, maybe. Infatuation, for sure. But I don't think this poem describes true love. Today this poem just shows me how empty I was inside, if it took another person to bring these things to life for me.

Without you life is not life
You give my sunsets their glow
You give my stars their sparkle
You give my afternoons their lazy warmth
My twilights their tender chill
You give my dawns their hope,
carried on fresh breeze
You give my nights their passion and dreams
You give my life its meaning
You give me a reason to live.

Written in September 1986

Bollywood gets down and dirty ..

There's a spate of recent ads starring Bollywood stars, that are just a bit too earthy for me.

We have Aamir Khan belching over his Coca-Cola, Preity Zinta scratching her dandruff-filled scalp before she discovers Clinic Shampoo, and now Zayed Khan picking his teeth in someone's car window reflection, presumably prior to gargling and washing it all down with his Mirinda.

Any day now we can expect to see an ad for easy-fit jeans that enable some star stud to squat comfortably by the side of the road while he takes a pee.

It's about having fun, not making fun.

Mamu and Gladys made a mistake at their last visit to Ramaiah Hospital. They made fun of each other. Mamu laughed at Gladys' wedding plans with Salman Khan because "who'd marry a fattie like you?" and Gladys yanked off Mamu's hat to reveal a bald head underneath.

Yes, it was funny. Yes, the audience laughed. But it wasn't good clowning. Clowning is not laughter at someone else's expense. Clowning is kind, innocent and harmless. We're supposed to be above baser humour that needs a target in order to get its laughs. No Sardarji jokes, no sexist smut or four-letter words. If we can't get them to laugh without these things, then we have a long way to go before we can call ourselves clowns. Because that other type of humour contains a veiled hostility - "It was only a joke!" or "You're too sensitive .. " or "Oh, you just don't have a sense of humour." or "You just don't get it because you're a girl." (or a guy, as the case may be).

People who've survived domestic violence or emotional abuse will find those last examples quite familiar. All the more reason a clown needs to be sure her jokes are never at any one's expense. The last thing a clown wants to be associated with is aggression or hostility or abuse.

Yup. There is certainly a deep philosophy behind the red nose. And inbetween the funny posts, I shall explore it further.

What I see when I look

The miracles are all around me, but sometimes I just don't look. But I'm happy to say that these days I look. And look what I see!

Mathematic trees,
assaulted by stone paving,
reply with square roots.

Over at the Alliance Francaise there's a wonderful tree who refuses to give up. Her roots fuse into perfect squares, making the stone slabs look as though they were embossed into her. She survives by conforming, but it's not a grovelling conformity. She does it with such dignity. Old trees are so wise.

In the beginning, there was Gladys.

I have just realised that I am the first Indian clown doctor! What an amazing feeling! In this country of one billion, I am the first! I can't think of any other thing I'd be happier to be first at. To celebrate, I share this delightful picture of Gladys who made an unexpected appearance at Kumari Aunty's 60th birthday party. I had informed her that I'd be unable to attend but had baked her a cake and would have a neighbour drop it off. The neighbour turned out to be Gladys of course, who kept the guests in giggles all afternoon. I also discovered that whether the audience is six years old or sixty, bubbles work magic!

Until Saturday, I was the one and only Indian clown doctor, but this weekend Kishore made his debut - Gladys and Mamu kept a bunch of little kids at Ramaiah's Teaching Hospital well-entertained. Gladys was busy making plans to marry Shah Rukh Khan on Tuesday when one of the children's mothers solemnly informed her that he was already married and even had two children. Not one to dwell long on heart ache (really should learn from her!) Gladys promptly called up Salman Khan and rescheduled the wedding and the groom for Wednesday (he had a gym appointment on Tuesday.)

Not to be left out, Mamu decided that he too wanted to get married, and decided that Aishwarya Rai would do. Gladys had to inform him that he was too late, as just that morning she'd spoken to Ash who had been busy brushing her teeth with Abi, newlywed and off the market. But not to worry, Gladys said, she knew another young lady who was eminently available: a Miss Jhanvi Kapoor.

Ah, the delight of being able to bring current events into hospital rounds! It was a great moment for laughter therapy.The whole ward, Mamu included, erupted at that. For a minute there, I think Mamu forgot to be Mamu!

And now, not content with being the first, Gladys also wants to be the best. With the book fairs in town, I've managed to pick up some delightful books for her, that will help build up her repertoire of song and dance games, art and craft ideas, puppet show ideas, and even one book about "mouth noises", appropriately titled "Mouth Noises". Many of these noises have been emanating from my mouth for decades, but now I know their technical names.

Gladys is also trying to build up a little database of Tamil and Kannada phrases. For now, she manages Urdu. Amazing how she does that with her Cockney accent, which, to my surprise, most people can decipher.

So Gladys and I shall be busier than ever, practising songs and dances, tunes to play on the recorder and flute, making puppets and practising a few little skits, fine-tuning my rather pathetic juggling skills, and oh, let's not forget the funny mouth noises. But for now, it's past midnight and Askios awaits my attention.

Snape. Someone else's face.

Some years ago, I went for salsa classes but had to drop out. One of the young men there, just a teenager perhaps, was the spitting image of one of my childhood abusers. We would dance in a circle, and change partners every few bars. I tried not to look at his face when it was his turn to dance with me. But then came the step where the man stands behind the woman, crossing her arms over as if pinned, and holds her from behind. I had to excuse myself "to go to the lady's room", and walked calmly down to my car, where I broke down and wept for ten minutes.

I never went back to salsa classes. Snape's expression as he looks at Harry in this picture reminds me of that moment. Memories of evil triggered by an innocent face.

Clean as Clown can be.

No nose-picking. No grungy fingernails. No sweaty shirts (freshly laundered and steam-ironed, if you please).

Oh yes. We hospital clowns are squeaky clean clowns. I love it! What my friends affectionately termed "obsessive-compulsive tendencies", are now career must-haves. I can now not only justify my strange taste in clothes and fondness for toys, I can also get away with not shaking hands, having a nail brush at every sink in my house, and making people leave their shoes at the door.

For at Docteur Clown, such things are smiled upon. Nay, BEAMED upon. My clown shoes, for instance, mustn't be worn on the streets, only in hospital, so that I don't tramp any outside dirt (and there is quite a lot of it in this city) into the wards. My hands must be thoroughly scrubbed - no hasty run under a tap. Clothes must be clean and only worn once before laundering. And bodies must be bathed both before and after visiting a hospital.

Ah, sweet, sweet-smelling clowns. May our tribe increase.

Juggling careers.

Organise! Routine! Schedule! Discipline! These are lovely words, that, sadly, do not seem to be part of my life at the moment. I now have three jobs: clown, poet, warrior. And juggling my three loves is not that easy. But unlike the juggling balls that I drop (rather frequently) I have no intention of dropping any of my three lines of work.

Clown:
This is a dream come true. But I wish there were more hours in the day. I often don't have the time to set aside for juggling practice or learning a new lullaby to sing little sick babies to sleep. The past three days I have not had the chance to do ANYthing remotely clownlike. Not even time to iron my newest pair of 2XXL baggy clown pants.

Poet:
My writing, what I - and most other people who know me - consider to be my greatest gift - has moved to the back burner. Although I know that my unwritten words die with me, there is more immediate action needed on the clowning and of course on my activism work.

Warrior:
This is my most difficult job. And the Askios Projects are already several jobs rolled into one. But fighting in the holy war against child abuse is, well, just that: holy. I signed up for lifetime membership, and I know that I am going to leave this world a better place by the time I'm finished. It's like the old fable about the mouse with the great idea: it doesn't work unless someone's willing to bell the cat. And I decided a long time ago that I would bell the cat.

So I shan't complain. "Clown, Poet, Warrior" looks good on my visiting card and it really does sum me up. Fragmented as I am, the mosaic I form is pretty damn good. (Hmm .. I wonder if there's a Haiku Noodle in that last sentence? We shall just have to wait and see.)

Tomorrow I shall put on my Clown hat. Yes, both literally and figuratively. Gladys the Clown will come out and lift many loads off my shoulders, turn them into little sparkly bits of fluff that fly off with every giggle. Sure, there will be new loads waiting in my Inbox later, but there will also be more clown days, and it will all balance out. That's the beauty of my mosaic.

Seeds and stuff

I wonder if seeds
know that they will become trees.
Growth - what adventure!

Nature. It's almost like one of those children's puzzles, where all the answers are hidden somewhere in the picture. I like to think that God has done this for us, hidden all the answers to our many, many questions about life - but hidden them right under our noses, obvious if we just LOOK for them. I do believe that nature holds the answers. I learn so much from seeds about life and death, about challenges and pain, struggle, persistence and growth.

A seed is buried.
"The end!" it weeps, as it splits
open, and begins.

Once Upon The Inside

Once upon the inside of my front door, I stuck a Post-It note. It read, "I only accept kind and loving people in my world."

Now, hardly anyone visits. I guess affirmations do work, after all.

And so it came to pass ..

... like wind after beans. Audition at 10 a.m. Workshop session at 12. Red nose handed to me at 2 pm, March 6th 2007. What a moment. I felt like I'd been awarded the Padma Bhushan.

Driving to the audition that morning, my heart was all a-flutter. I found myself beaming at the road and the traffic, while "I'm going to be a clown!" kept dancing through my head. It was the same feeling I feel when I fall in love. Not that ALL the men I've fallen in love with were clowns. Au contraire. Some of them really didn't put many smiles on my face in the end. But this feeling today was so exhilarating - the feeling before you find out what a creep the man who rocks your boat really is - and even better: no nausea, no letdown, no yeast infections, no lies. (And best of all, it just gets better every day!)

Oh yes. Clowning is way better than falling in love. Clowning is about being true and sincere (well, hospital clowning .. I don't know about circus clowns which is a whole different scene). As a clown, I walk bow-legged because I choose to, not because I have to (oh dear what innuendos). Clowns wear bloomers not g-strings. Clowns are at their sexiest with baggy over (or under) sized clothes. High heels vs. clown shoes - no comparison. Of course, as a clown I do have to wear more make-up than I'm used to. But you can't have it all.

The audition was fun, though I was a bit nervous at first. I whipped out my recorder, fife and a strange instrument called a melodica (distant relative of the accordion) and proceeded to play quite badly. Then I grabbed my balls and showed the lady what I could do with them. Not much. I can juggle three balls but not too well. (Yes I have THREE balls. Multicoloured juggling balls. Actually I have SIX. Another clown vs romance advantage - all the balls you want, and you only play with them when you really want to).

Then I had to do a bit of acting and improvisation, fill out a form, listen, talk, and listen some more, and then on to my first workshop session DOT DOT DOT (yes another uninspiring cliffhanger).

Gladys comes out of the closet.

Gladys has been around for a while. But I like to think that March 6th 2007 is the date when she really came out of the closet, and into polite society.

In a way, Askios was responsible, because it all began when an article about how I started Askios was published in Sattva, an ezine about the development sector. Last month's issue was about Bangalore and as I looked through the pages, I noticed a comment in a photo feature, by someone who was training with Docteur Clown. That's interesting, I thought.No, I lie. I didn't think it was interesting. I went ballistic with joy! Clown. CLOWN. CLOWN!!!! I had to get in!!!

Well, I hate long blog posts that just go on and on, so I'll cut a long story short. Maybe not short. Maybe just less long than it could be. Here goes: I googled and found a recent news article about Docteur Clown in Bangalore. They had just held auditions. I called the lady and was told that training had already begun. Devastation! I tried to draw on all my old advertising skills, and sell myself to her, and must assume that it worked, because eventually she said she'd think about it and that I should call her in two days at 9 a.m.

Oh, the tension. It was worse than waiting for a Saturday-night date to call you on Monday.
I called at 8.55 a.m. I called at 9, 9.10, 9.20 etc etc. and all I got was a ringtone. More devastation. By 2 p.m. I gave up, and reassured myself that she had left her mobile at home (though secretly I worried that she had met another clown) and called again the following morning.

Meet me at 4, she said, and I did. Then waited some more while she finished her accordion class. I am SO glad I am a much calmer human being this decade. The old me would have stormed off in a huff. But the new improved me took the time to enjoy the Alliance Francaise's lovely tea, lovely garden, and not-so-lovely garden benches.

Eventually the lady did show up and we had a nice long talk, at the end of which I discovered that while not yet Clown status, I had at least got myself an audition on the following Tuesday. I promptly rushed home and spent the next few days despairing over my badly-deteriorated juggling skills. I have since decided to blame this on my middle-aged eyesight, which now makes everything close by look blurry.

By Tuesday morning, I had a bag packed with all the things I deemed necessary for the audition. Then, with pounding heart and ridiculously happy smile, I set off .

Not much of a cliffhanger, I realise, but I stop here.