No difference.

The world was supposed to feel safer.
The air was supposed to smell clean.
But this death of a monster didn't change
a thing.

For this ending that came without justice
without confrontation
without resolution
I cried.
I cry.

No love in my heart.

 

And none in yours, either.  We've known for the longest time that this is not where love lives. Why are we still pretending that our emotions reside in our chests?

Perhaps it was the racing heartbeat in a moment of desire, or the warm security of a mother's breast, that first made humans think that love was somehow associated with the heart. Lovely in a symbolic sense, but we're in the twenty-first century now, we really should make better use of our brains. And after all, that is where the love is. It's all up there in our brains:  our passions, our desires, our pains.

The brain is where it all happens, so what's with all the heart stuff? Sure, it's a pretty icon in any colour, not just red, and it looks good on everything from tattoos to t-shirts, greeting cards and playing cards. A brain would be more accurate, but if I remember correctly, it's lumpy and pinkish grey. The heart's not just prettier, it's more recognised, worldwide, as the symbol for love. So should we just shut up and keep hearting the heart?

My concern is this:  are we perpetuating an untruth? How many of us are taking it for granted that love comes from our hearts, simply because our world and our media show it that way? How many children have absorbed this fancy as a fact, rather than the pleasing fiction that it is? Is it wrong to let that happen? Is it an acceptable wrong? I don't know. But I do know that if we still had pleasant fancies about falling off the edge of the world, there would be a bunch of people out there still believing that the earth is flat.

Keep hearting, by all means, if it makes you happy (or rich, if you sell Valentine's cards). Me, I shall give credit where it's due. So to those of you out there who I know and love, I have to say:  I don't heart you any more. But don't worry about it too much, because I brain you, people! I brain you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Lest we forget.

Today it is twenty years since the Babri Masjid (Mosque of Babur) was torn down. Today is a day to think about all the bloodshed, hatred, fear and division that rose from its rubble, and ask ourselves, why?

Some time ago, I wrote a fable based on this. It's one of my favourite pieces, and I'd like to share it with you again today:

*

Once upon 2.77 acres of land, people discovered God. Some of the people called Him Rama. Some called Him Allah. God smiled at them all, because only He knew that He was in every name, and that He was beyond names.

Sometimes God tried to explain this to the people, but they could not understand. He tried to tell them through the leaves of trees, and through the songs of birds. He planted His truth in the eyes of every child, and He waited for the people to see it. But they would not look, and so they did not see.

The people, however, did love God. They were fascinated by Him. They adored and feared Him, and they chose beautiful ways to worship Him. They did not all choose the same way, of course, because God had long ago breathed into each of these people the gifts of self-expression and choice. So some of the people heard a hymn to God in the striking of a bell, and some heard it in the voice of a man calling them to prayer.

God heard them both. But in time, another sound started to drown out the hymns He loved. It was the sound of the people, quarrelling amongst themselves as to whose god God was.

God bowed His head and wept. And the people looked up and said, “Ah, rain.”

For a time, they were distracted, and they began to speak of weather and soil and geography. But inevitably, they returned to their arguing. And this time they quarrelled about whose land God’s land was.

“Mine,” said God, whispering the word through the rustle of leaves. But the people could not hear the word over the noise of their angers and their fears.

“Yours,” said God, scattering the word through the songs of birds. But the people were too busy gathering evidence to spare any time to find the word.

“Ours,” said God, shining the word through the eyes of children. But the people kept their eyes fixed, burning with hate, upon each other, and did not notice the word.

Nobody knows the exact day when He walked quietly away from those 2.77 acres of land, and nobody said goodbye, because nobody noticed He had left.

*

You can read the original post, Once Upon 2.77 Acres, together with the comments it received, by clicking here.

You can also read my poem, Agarbatti, inspired by the same issue, by clicking here.

Children's Day.

"To honour children globally."

"To protect children working long hours in dangerous circumstances and allow all children access to an education."

"To promote mutual exchange and understanding among children."

"To initiate action to benefit and promote the welfare of the world's children."

"To let students have fun. "

"To consider those conditions in society which affect the lives and future of our children."

"To strengthen children's rights."

"To focus on the practice of sharing, loving and caring as well as honouring our children."

"To emphasise the importance of children in society."

"To give children the opportunity to have fun."

"To create awareness about the significant role of children towards the development of the country."

"To observe the rights of children."

"To remind ourselves that children are the future builders and developers of the country and the world.

"To enable parents and children to spend the day together, and work together to reconcile their problems."

"To celebrate childhood."


These are some of the reasons countries and organisations around the world have given, for celebrating Children's Day (source: Wikipedia)

How sad that we need a reminder to treat children this way.

Today, India celebrates Children's Day. November 14th was chosen because it was the birth date of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. He was known as Chacha Nehru (Uncle Nehru) by the children of his day. (He's also Rahul Gandhi's great-grandaddy.)

I wiki'ed Children's Day and discovered that various countries celebrate it, at various times of the year. Here are some other dates upon which people celebrate Children's Day around the world.

January 6th
March 17th, 21st and 25th
April 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th, 23rd, 24th and 30th.
May 5th, 10th, 17th and 27th
June 1st and 2nd
July 23rd and 24th
August 16th
September 9th and 10th
October 1st, 8th and 12th
November 11th, 14th, 15th and 20th
December 5th, 23rd and 25th

Make a note in your calender and celebrate them all.

The little specials of life.

This is no ordinary cup of coffee. In fact, it's not a cup of coffee at all, it's the DREGS of what was once a cup of coffee. And this cup was made for me by Mrs. Seshadri, my history teacher back in school, whom I'd not met in years - decades even - but was reunited with just last month. I had such a lovely inspiring morning with her, and when she made me a cup of coffee, I just had to take a picture of it! We were all so in awe of her back in school, and the idea that I had just drunk my very first cup of coffee MADE BY MRS. SESHADRI!! was too momentous not to immortalise on film!

Seven sixes.

Priya tagged me recently and as a result, I'm supposed to share 7 things about myself on this blog. So I thought and thought. And thought. For days. And then, minutes ago, while sitting on that magical thought-inspiring potty of mine, I just had an idea. I'm 42 (for a few months more, at any rate) and 7 x 6 = 42. So here is my list of seven things about me:

1. Six years old, Awali, Bahrain:
I had the reading level of an eleven year old.

2. Twelve years old, Bishop Cotton Girls School, Bangalore, India:
I woke up with a sense of dread and despair every morning.

3. Eighteen years old, Warrensburg, Missouri, USA:
I fell off the sidewalk and broke my foot.

4. Twenty four years old, London:
I stood in Charles Dickens' study.

5. Thirty years old, FP7, Bahrain:
I looked Absolutly gorgeous.

6. Thirty six years old, Jidhafs, Bahrain:
I took the pulse of a dying man, and felt it stop.

7. Forty two years old:
I stopped trying to save the world.

Fifty years! My goodness!

Today is my parents' golden wedding anniversary. They were married 50 years ago, on January 30th, 1958, in Madras. For some reason, I'm at a loss for what to say. I thought I would write here about all they've done, been, seen, created .. but it seems too huge a task to write about a 50-year relationship! And yet, they've done something even bigger: they've lived it!

There have been times when I wasn't sure they would make this date, especially last year when Daddy was sick. So I'm grateful to God for giving them this incredible milestone. And grateful to them for sticking it out through all the ups and downs of life.

gLAdYs At tHe TuESday mAtiNEe

And off to the circus it was today! Front row seats to start with and lunch with a clown and two trapeze artists to finish it off. Inbetween I got to see a never-ending stream of circus acts--it started with the trapeze, then went on to balancing acts on a steel rod, tightrope, trick skaters, a "boneless" lady contortionist, daredevil motorbikers (one of whom turned out to be a woman)-- actually there were quite a few daredevil stunts, my heart was in my mouth quite often especially during the "ring of death" which was this huge double-ended pendulum like-thing that swirled high in the sky while the circus people strolled upon it most casually. One man even rode a unicycle on it!

There were tumblers who were great, and I thought they would have been even greater if they had clown make-up on--they were both brilliant and funny, well-coordinated and it was clear that they were having fun.

Next a young girl went up on this ring-swing-type-thing (yes, I haven't quite got the technical circus jargon right so you'll be seeing lots of hyphenated words in this post) and did all sorts of gasp-inspiring twirls and balancing feats up in the air, to the Titanic song! (And it was much more interesting and magical to watch than Leonardo and Kate spreading their wings on the tip of the Titanic!)

Then came a doggie troupe - 3 poms, 2 dalmatians and a poodle. They were adorable and were really happy dogs. No animal cruelty there .. their tails just never stopped wagging!!

After the doggies, it was the oddly named Dental Act. I prefer to call it "the teeth-twirlers"! All these women spinning and twirling, suspended in the air, and holding on only with their teeth! (I bet these women's husbands are careful never to go to bed angry .. OUCH).

Trick cyclists, all women, came on and did a bunch of balancing tricks, wheelies, etc. As they rode out, a bareback rider galloped in on a very beautiful horse.

(Incidentally I found out later that there's a circus superstition about the number of animals and this is why the circus has seven horses, seven elephants, etc. I only counted three camels, though. But I guess three is enough. They're pretty bad-tempered. And somewhat malodorous. I wonder if anyone collects all the wonderful elephant/camel/horse manure .. it would be such good fertiliser.)

But I digress. After the horse, an elephant trundled into the ring and performed a puja. Then a Russian woman with a lovely bum did all sorts of spinning and balancing trick with her legs in the air (lying on a platform on her back) then added hula hoops and finally juggling balls. Talk about multi-tasking!

Birds were next! Macaws and cockatoos. Heaven. They were such beautiful birds and so very sweet. (As I was putting Neembu and Maska to bed tonight I promised to tell them all about the bird act tomorrow morning).

Bicep man was next. Well, that's not what he was called but man, what muscles. His arms and shoulders were incredible. He did a whole lot of gymnastics that pretty much explained why he had these incredible muscles - red ribbon wrapped around his wrists and then up into the air to do all sorts of twists and turns entirely on his arms' strength.

There was Chinese plate-spinning by the girls and then the bad-tempered camels did a trot around and some stunts, accompanied by their equally bad-tempered trainer. Every time he whacked them on the backside I was reminded of cops whacking prisoners at a police station with their lathis. This was the only performance for which I could not clap. The dogs, the birds, the elephants even, seemed to be having fun, but the camels were just really pissed off to be there. One of them actually looked quite disdainful. (Disdainful but not miserable, fortunately. I know .. the animal-lovers get into a huff about animal performances at circuses .. but I shall not judge, my favourite man gave me this funda about throwing the first stone, and if I can apply that to child abusers, then I can apply it to circuses).

So away from social issues, and back to the show! A trampoline act, a knife act and a fire-eater (who was accompanied by a rather embarrassed-looking young woman who danced vaguely around while he posed and leapt like a matador and spat huge flames out of his mouth).

Another animal act! An elephant who played cricket. No singles, only sixes. Team India could use this, but I recall noticing some rather massive (and very pendulous) vulva and so I guess SHE wouldn't be eligible for the men's team.

Next she had a snack and a "drink" and did a tipsy thing, before taking a nap in the ring. Another elephant came in to play doctor with her. (Now, now, just because I mentioned the vulva don't go thinking perverse thoughts). He just checked her heart with a giant stethoscope and gave her an injection.

The show ended with more of the tumbling/gymnastic stuff, this time it was people jumping off one end of a see-saw and someone on the other end getting hurtled up into the air (very Loony Tunes, don't you think?!) and into a nice comfy sofa that was balanced on the end of a long rod on someone's shoulders.

And then it was over, just like that. I wish they'd had a ringleader, though--the guy with the top hat--to compere the show; I felt that would have made it nicer, given the whole thing more pizzazz. Instead there was just a voice over a microphone. Also the assistants handling the ropes etc. would have looked nicer if they were in some sort of costume.

And now you must be wondering: what about the clowns? Well, they were in and out throughout the show, and I thought I would put that in a separate post as this one is long enough as it is.

But before I go, I must tell you that I PETTED A HIPPO TODAY! One of the most dangerous animals in the world! But this one was quite benign. Still .. a hippo! After the show, William, one of the clowns, took me round the back, behind the ring and I got to meet Raja the hippo. This too, warrants a separate post. Perhaps a Haiku Noodle, even. So I'll save that for later.

I also met the dogs, a bunch of birdies, and ended my wonderful day at the circus sitting in a tent with William the clown, two trapeze artists (a married couple from Nepal) and a friend of William's who turned out to be an absolute character who regaled us with some rather bizarre ghost stories that centred around the graveyard that just happens to be behind my apartment. And that's yet another post.

But for now, good night. And those of you in Bangalore: GO TO THE CIRCUS! It's on till the 10th of February, shows are at 1, 4 and 7 pm (summer clothing recommended). And at one of these shows, Gladys and Miss Rose will be making a guest appearance. Watch this space!

Suniti Namjoshi

Last evening my friend Aditi invited me and about twenty other people to an evening with Suniti Namjoshi. I had no idea who Suniti was until I googled her, and now, after meeting her and hearing her read from her work and listening to her talk, I am a fan. I love that she tickled my mind open and awake. It had been sluggish and musty, yet another part of my life that needs decluttering. I needed to meet that lady!

Suniti talked about writing, and if you click on this you can read some of what she thinks about it. She also read from her work, and both asked and encouraged questions. And so we talked of emotion, of good and evil, of monsters and children and adults.

This is some of what sprouted for me, from last evening:

Children's emotions are open. They love. They hate. They fear. They want. They hope. Adults do all the same things but their emotions get contained and polluted somewhere along the line. We get quite obsessed with labels and formulae and answers and really, there ARE no answers. We clutter and pollute our insides with all this unnecessary baggage and then find ourselves incredibly complicated and think this is what being grown-up is all about. (Funnily enough, a lot of the evening was spent in asking questions and looking for labels and formalae and answers!)

Today my mind feels fertile and refreshed. Freshly ploughed. I can't wait to see what grows, and share it with you all here! Thank you, Suniti Namjoshi, for coming into my life. And thank you, Aditi, for bringing her.

gLadYs aT tHe ciRcUs

It was like part of a childhood dream come true. There was no sawdust in the ring, just nice red Karnataka dust--but it was a circus ring, a real live circus ring. There were acrobats doing flips on a trampoline, one girl sitting on the handlebars of a bicycle and riding backwards, there were men and women up on the trapeze.

And down in the dust, the nice red dust, Gladys and Miss Rose met the clowns of the Jumbo Russian Circus! We spent two hours with them, telling them about how we work as hospital clowns, we played together, practised together, and had a lot of fun in spite of my pitiful attempts to translate. Quite a complicated procedure all of it went through, really. From French to Franglais to English to Hinglish and finally to Hindi. But as clowns do, we all managed to communicate with each other. And even when we miscommunicated, it was okay. Clowns are cool with mistakes.

There were about eight of them. Three of them were little. They were from all over India - Nepal, Madras, Bombay .. they were Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and one of them was from phoren--"William from Belgium"--we thought he was just joking, as he said this in nothing like a Belgian accent, but it turned out he was the last of a Belgian circus family, and he'd been born and brought up here in India. His wife is Indian and none of his children are in the circus. Not surprisingly, I suppose. Circus people don't look very well off. But they smile a lot.

Some of the clowns were once trapeze artists or acrobats, who turned to clowning as they got older. They were all lovely people and enthusiastic, but very shy. They were amazed at the fact that Severine and I were clowns--"there are no lady clowns in India," we were informed.

There are now! So it looks like Gladys is India's very first home-grown "lady clown". Although to tell the truth, she ain't much of a lady. You should hear the language she uses when children aren't around.

At the end of our session, one of the clowns, Chandrashekhar, rushed off to bring us his photo albums and showed us pictures from his past. There was an amazing old black and white shot of him in white leotards (non-spangly), chest puffed out, good old seventies hair and pencil-thin moustache, from before he became a clown. And his clown pictures! Adorable! He had the most delightful costumes and the most to-die-for spiralled walking stick.

Before we left, the clowns invited us to join them in the ring at one of their shows! Not to do a full performance, but just to go around the ring once when they first come out.

THAT will be the childhood dream come true. Although in the childhood dream I was usually dressed in a spangly dress and standing on one foot atop a trotting horse, or else dressed in spangly tights and flying from a trapeze into the arms of one of the Cimarro brothers.

Ah, the Cimarro brothers .. they were the trapeze artists at Gerry Cottle's Circus, a British circus that I saw in the early seventies. I was nine. They were Italian and unshaven and they wore tights. I do not remember if the tights were spangly. I just remember falling madly in love with both brothers and wanting to run away and join the circus, if only I could remember how to get there. But I could not--remember--and so I did not--run away--and that was that. I still have a thing for Italian men.

Stay tuned for more on the circus ..

In the beginning there was an earth journey.

(I have nearly ten blogs. One on haiku. One about ads. One about clowning. There's even one on Severus Snape. I'm not sure why I felt the need to compartmentalise my writing like this. After all, they're all me. So now I've decided to simplify things and have all my favourite posts here on this one blog, titled after the things I like my life to revolve around. - n2n, 15 Dec 2007)

Last night I went to my first "Bhoomi Jathre" (translates roughly as Earth Journey), a dusk-to-dawn cultural festival held at Fireflies, an ecological ashram on the outskirts of Bangalore. An amphitheatre of granite slabs circles down towards a stage actually built right around a huge peepul tree. The tree provides both centrepiece and ceiling.

This year's theme was the tree god. There were traditional dancers, and music ranging from ancient classical to modern fusion. There was also a flea market of arts and crafts, and food stalls selling organic salads, local breads, homemade cakes and brownies and freshly steamed Tibetan momos. There was a free book stall, and free tree saplings. The entire festival is non-sponsored: no corporate logos around, and even the soft drinks were local: the coconut of your choice, broken into with a farmer's sickle for its cool sweet naarial paani (coconut water).

On the one-hour drive down Kanakapura Road towards all this, Navaz briefed me on the haiku writing competition at the festival, that she had been asked to organise. In return for safe passage to and from the festival, I was roped in as Assistant Haiku Person.

The haiku never happened. I think the word "competition" intimidated everyone. But having discovered the 5-7-5 rule, this word junkie is hooked! I'm not sure my attempts qualify as haiku -- I know there's more to the process than just the 17 syllables -- but I'll learn as I go along.

I came to haiku.
Seeking words, I found momos.
All night long I burped.