why i like being 16

Its a Sunday morning and it looks like it will rain the whole day. I've made a random playlist and planned to spend the day drifting through a room filled with my aura undisturbed by other people's influences. Except my mother. I may call her.
Thoughts I've been thinking...
1. How did I get here? Not here as in Seoul, South Korea but in life. I know its quiet a pointless question to be exploring.. no one finds gold through. What did I do get so terribly confused with love. Love and trust and belief. Is it because I'm afraid I'll be hurt again? Is it so simple? But I seemed to have convinced myself that Ive already done the worst to myself and nothing can harm me. I believe this time when I love someone I'm armed to hurt them. much against my wishes. Because I don't love wholly anymore, I don't know the head-over-hells feeling of love anymore. I like people but nobody and nothing and no situation feels wholly anything. And I chase that feeling secretly with a rush of blood. With dance, with swimming, with the little alcohol that I consume. And I want to say this to the whole bloody world till they listen and understand but I don't think people are ready to accept your vulnerability yet. What I' d really like is to have a conversation with someone who totally understands this and doesn't judge me and keep it all to him/herself.
2. Uncertainty. At 16 I seemed to know what I wanted to do. A couple of years later I frown much more and can't even trust myself. Yet I can go through a day almost effortlessly. I like the intensity of the teens.. if you were disturbed you howled, you hated, you cried, you sank and then you rose with belief. Now, you bob like a wave feeling like you are moving deeper or higher but you are just where you were, right in the middle of the sea.

PS: I would be perfect to sit this rainy day with Kaushik, Akshay, KD, Hari, Shilo, Shilo's mum, Paromita , vasanta aunty, Dhiren all at the same time. All the people who would talk a lot of things I don't know, great music, art, food, film and this that and the other and inspire inspire inspire.

Mannaso Bhankhap Simmnida = Nice to meet you (in korean)

strangely enough I was asked today if I believe in love at first sight.
Now, we can never think of that statement without all the valentine-red-heart-shaped-balloons-baggage. Only through the matrimonial websites with grammatical errors... through high school movies and boy band lyrics. May be it came from that world of phrases we don't touch anymore.
But I was asked in all innocence, within another context, whether I believe I'm capable of finding love, liking , the beginning of something, the first time I see someone. And I really couldn't give a yes or no answer. I could. Somewhere I believe that I wanted to say yes, but the politically-correct-gone-though-enough-bad-relationships-person in me couldn't say that. So I said yes nevertheless (mustering all my courage and hoping he wouldn't notice it) and supported my answer saying ... I don't think we end up knowing people even after living around them... even when we can predict the colour of their underwear... so liking them after knowing all their facts or liking them by just the look of them, or their bodies, or their presence and may be the hesitance in their smile is perhaps okay..(notice the choice of words..is perhaps ok?! well you can't quote me on this... but this is something like what i meant.) but he said... how many people do you see in a day? how many men? In india 50,000? I said. easily right... we have a population of 1,065,070,607. which is 324 persons per square kilometre. And he said, how many people you see the first time make you want you to know them... make you want to meet them again?

hmm...
and i said,
where did you read that?
or which movie is this from?

thought for the day.

We are all babies. Frail infants waking up each day to learn from what we see around us. Even people we hold responsible because of the name we give them, are just babies. The mother who told you what wasn't OK to touch and what wasn't ok to put in your mouth, the father who tells you what time you should be home, the policemen on the road, the landlord, the boss, the chief of blah, the head of in charge, the department of so and so and the organisation, the institution and the system. All babies. They make the same mistakes as us, all the time. Mothers are still learning to touch, Fathers are figuring out love, the landlord has a person inside him, the boss has a boss, and the organisation, the institution and the system are all structures for people to learn together.
So if you are waiting for the day you will be good enough to show yourself to the world. Forget about it. You are always just going to be learning. One thing or another, life, or art, or a recipe. You can share yourself with others at any point of this process. And its not confidence or skill but honesty that helps you share anything from your art, your idea and your space with another.

life unabridged

sometimes
i feel weighed down by my organs as if the life in me is killing me and my body is holding me down from flying, from floating. a haze envelopes my fingers and i touch through a mist. nothing really. then i move, run, swim, cycle and feel myself again. i am, perhaps a rush of blood.

well, i've lived the not-knowing-when-are-going-to-be-home life and its time to get back home. So I begin to write and draw my thoughts again. i'm ready to be personal again. i have words to put out here, to say to nobody in particular but say nevertheless.

The Bible of Recurrent Dreams, or just Dreams or Whatever.

After a fairly long sabbatical from the process of floating words in cyber space I have found again a purpose, a reason to come back to it. Inspired by the book I'm reading, there comes about a new project of sorts, call it an act of divination or moral obligation or simply the usual madness one has to do for oneself.
I'm compiling a book of dreams. You send your dreams- day dreams dreamt at night, sights seen with eyes shut, felt with hands alseep, sleep walking into the world behind the eyelid- with your name and the date and I put it down with your name and the date into the Bible of Dreams. Well, the Bible of Recurrent dreams, or just dreams, or whatever.
Many many centuries later some creature capable of reading the ancient script of english will find it only to realise the dreams are the same over and over again.

the end.



PS: to see with eyes shut and tapping the infinite power of dreams into our lives are themes Chamko Rani is delving on for her dance pedagogy sessions with her students at schools and pre-montessori.
PPS: The book I'm reading is full of little things that inspire you into doing things- Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

.

this is a city of romance
With couples holding hands.
Where the lonely
Cry their love into the sea
Stir waves of love in heart of fish
That is a city
Encroaching its parks
Where weary souls
Burst red heart shaped balloons and
Stare nights into the moon.
On yellow fizzy water seas
They graze their cattle
Of work and ease
and that fresh green leaf inside
dies before it uncurls to life.

where i stand

i stand at the edge
and enjoy the view
you jump in quick
and jump out
because i stand
at the edge to
enjoy the view
just touching the waters
and hearing the sea
smelling the air
feeling the sand underneath
and the caress of the breeze.
you dive peasant child like
head first heart full.
i stand at the edge.