Same Old Me: Newly Minted Author!

 All the stars aligned, and here we are:

Available Globally on Amazon:

https://a.co/d/31OwNhq

https://amzn.eu/d/cXMBT1D

When It Snows on The East Coast of America

There is reason to feel cold

and trapped at home There is added work of 

shoveling snow

and layering the children when 

they peskily insist on making

a 

snowman

And then they create a named creature on the front lawn

it has a nose, often carrot like,

and two eyes, made of anything the kids could find in pairs. 

(Once they put two pencils -pointed searing eyes,

then another time, a pair of tennis balls- neon green bedazzled eyes)

The eyes need to look similar.

who knows what all will those two similar eyes see

kids sledding?

snow blowers spraying snow?

yellow school bus stopping to pick up children?

snowmen don't have ears

will they ever hear of Russian soldiers raping Ukrainian women?

or of little children in Yemen dying of hunger?

or of lovers being hacked by lovers into sizes just big enough to fit into refrigerators?

or of missiles lighting up the night sky over IsraelPalestine? One sky, lit up, on fire?

or of the arctic snow melting so fast that the snowman

may drown?

When it snows on the east coast of america 

snowmen

and snowwomen 

and snowchildren

and snowothers 

everywhere 

melt.

#SNOW 

#israel #palestine #india #ukraine #russia #yemen 

#snowmen

 

Hanif Kureishi Becomes The Inspiration From A Hospital Bed

My day would have been off to a great, I daresay stellar, start. That great start would have been a great start to a week , since today is Monday. Perhaps then my whole week would have set a tone for the remainder of the month of March and subsequently, of the remainder of the year. Who knows how that might have set my remainder of the life on an orbit of great accomplishments-one marked by name, fame, goodwill, health, wealth, positivity, fun, laughter, hugs, embraces and blessings. All of this was mine to grab in that orbit, and that orbit was mine to get onto, except that the day's start was brought to the most unpredicted and technical glitch! 

I did not see the chair parked under my multi-height table, which was at my standing height when I came to it, bathed and fresh with my cup of coffee in hand. I clicked on the remote to bring it down to my sitting position. The shortening of the desk's legs stared with the smooth movement at usual, thus leaving zero room for me to suspect anything lurking in the darkness of the space under the table. And then it happened. Mid-way through the journey down to my sitting height, the table began to bulge up in the center, as it met the black chair on its way. Then the desk began to rise on one side. The lop-sidedness would have cost me my desktop, as it began to almost slide. The whole thing happened way too fast. I managed to click the stop on the remote, and discovered the chair. After much moving stuff off my desk, and then adjusting the legs of the table, I have managed to get the table to a decent sitting height. However, I notice that a wire has snapped, and my table's legs will not be able to be lengthened again. 

My table's phoenix will not rise again (for the foreseeable future-given that I am extremely bad with making phone calls to companies to seek spare part and then even worst at actually doing any repairs.) 

I am furious, at having lost the ability to show-off (to my children) the one technical and functional object I assembled, and that they enjoyed playing with. They liked the table going up and down. I guess, now no more for a while. 

I could continue to be really upset and then go down a rabbit-hole of sulking. However, I recall that just yesterday I had written to Hanif Kureishi on one of his hospital dispatches (https://hanifkureishi.substack.com/). The noted British Playwright had a bad fall late last year while in Italy and has been on a hospital bed since. He is unable to write himself, and thus dictates his thoughts for a blog he started from there. He confessed to feeling despondent and sad being in pain, and not being able to have his friends visit him in Italy. He wants to hear his people speak to him in his language. Foreign words do not comfort him now. And I, like many others who read his chronicles, asked him to be strong.

Kureishi's is a real plight. His fall was real, and so is his hopelessness. His is a suffering that demands my prayer, since I now know about it. My table's wire snapping is just that. A wire that snapped and can be fixed-I think. The table's situation is an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one, I know. Sending him strength again, and sitting down to write (as opposed to standing) is the right thing to do. The exact time to reach that orbit might be gone, but who knows what new orbit a writer might pen down! 

#hanifkureishi

Listening to the CUTE and CONCISE Alice Munro: Nobel Prize Winner for 2013

She elevated the short story to that ultimate book-shelf!
She is the invincible,
the Canadian-

Alice Munro in conversation with the Nobel Channel

https://youtu.be/EgKC_SDhOKk

(Video Source: Nobel Prize’s official YouTube channel
Picture Source: Wikipedia)

#Festivals2021 Hurt! They Hurt!

Spoken Poetry videos and write-ups in theQuint.com

 Starting with the most recent:

1. On India’s Republic Day and Nostalgia, Jan2022: 

https://www.thequint.com/us-nri-news/memories-golden-indian-american-poet-nostalgic-poem-republic-day

2. On the Essence of the year 2021:

https://www.thequint.com/us-nri-news/a-poem-on-the-oxygen-that-we-once-took-for-granted-covid-second-wave-2021

3. On Delhi, pollution add the green solution:

https://www.thequint.com/us-nri-news/delhi-pollution-clogged-lungs-golden-heart-indian-american-poem-beloved-dilli

4. On Gandhi and non-Violence: 

https://www.thequint.com/us-nri-news/gandhi-jayanti-poem-tribute-non-violence

It Rained a Lot That Day

It rained a lot that day,

that day, when another Draupadi cried for 

the hundredth time

for her disrobed dignity,

when another Sita cried for 

the thousandth time 

for her crushed confidence

and when another 

Lucy

cried for the millionth time 

upon hearing that locker room guffaw

about her hem line, 

her neck line

her walk

her talk

it rained so hard

deafening the forests 

and the cities and

the villages

and then when it stopped to rain,

they didn't know where to sow a seed 

a single seed

for by now 

the earth had dried 

the clouds had blown away

and only dry, brittle and forever parched earth remained,

to burn in it's own hell.

 

The Cats

 

🐱🐱

The cats have left the house,

one by one.

                              They came in groups too. 

first the lone mother,

                                                                   and then one day, 

her litter,

                         of four.

                                   One of them died, shortly after birth,

                                                         without a wail or a whimper.

Just lay there still. I thought the mother was eating this one, till I saw she was just internalizing this one, for whom the exterior of her mother's body had been harsh, unlivable, cold and cruel?

We disposed the dead kitten--we the humans in the mother cat's life. In the

                                             end, that house stands aloof, unlived, and cold.

                                                     All the cats have left.

...starting Sustainability, with Self-sufficiency in the backyard!

 Fruits of Labor--always the SWEETEST!

(Summer 2021!)

The Start of a Green-Thumb Aspiration!

Writing on this and that, here and there.....

Some of My Recent Blogposts as a Guest Contributor (Because non-fiction is where we live, and fiction is where we dream!): 

v Why Vote? https://www.edforsd.org/post/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-u-s-citizens

v Pandemic Lockdown: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/covid19-teachable-moments/

v Kamala Harris: https://americankahani.com/perspectives/whats-in-a-middle-name-the-significance-of-devi-in-kamala-harriss-name/ 

v Sustainability: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/color-coded-hotel-towels/

v Summer-Slide: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/13-ways-to-beat-the-heat-and-sabotage-the-summer-slide/

v That Quintessential Sari: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/sorry-in-a-sari/

v Dubai: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/dubai-demystified/

The Green Cover We Cherish So Much

 

Poetry in JCFPL

A poetry to raise a toast to the sense of community that gets sealed in a time of crisis!

tinyurl.com/jcpoetry2021

....When the water of the Hudson rises....

When in the Beyond

I lost a train of thought to the screeching halt by a memory. 

This happens to me often,
Memories, you would brand random,
Simply appear,
Out of nowhere,
And lead me on to places old,
Faces old,
Smells of yore,
Heat that sears,
And rains that pour.
I am lost in the familiar,
I am uncertain in that which has happened,
I am limp, even when I knew I ran,
I am darting, where I know I lay for hours.

Beauty, in the perfection of her face,
Bravado, in his grip on the bike handles,
Fear, in those letters reaching the correct address,
Shame, in the first red on the underpant.
Envy, in a 99 here and a 100 there.

A house in the hills, 
is in the memories,
A house in the hills,
was never in the plans.

A flight to the Beyond,
is written in the dreams in those memories,
And sitting in that Beyond today,
I can see all that lies just outside the Beyond
....from those days, from these days, but outside.

It is the law of nature, I think,
to leave the Behind, when you enter the Beyond.

Truth That Travels

Truth That Travels

Fake it,
for the truth,
no one can take it.

Truth torments,
for the truth may be ephemeral like the dew drop on the leaf,
glistening, filled up to the brim in sparkling allure,
So real, but gone, by a wind, by a whisper or by a whim.

Truth prevails,
truth as we saw it.
Truth, that can travel undiminished, undeterred, understood.

Mind

That eternal vagabond, 

That Usain Bolt of thoughts, 

That mixing bowl of Glen with Chardonnay with Vodka and Tequila,

That child with a pout insisting on the china doll,

That Siddhartha of nirvana,

That Hitler of Holocaust,

This mind is all that,

And worse.

To Lost Friends

It rains outside,
I did not see the clouds in the evening.
Where did this rain come from?

Rain, like friends, can leave you wet, in memories.....of days gone by.
A friend.....who is she?
Someone who made you laugh, or someone who cried with you?

You will never know.
Like a dream that never came true, the friend is gone for now.
I hear no pitter-patter any more. Did the rain end?

A sun will shine tomorrow,
or perhaps day after.
This dampness will take a while to dry. Eyes are rain clouds you see.

As the Elementary School Kids Reflect on Mr. Obama

The Elections, came, and the hateful dirt just kept spilling out in the open, for all to see, for so many to be buried under. Sentiments were badly hurt. Hurt because, groups of people started to receive names, allegations and distrust. Someone had to win the White House, and so we now have a new President-Elect. As we look to the new with anticipation, as a mother of two small kids, for me, it is only fair to start thinking what is it that the elementary school kids, (at max 11 years of age currently), are going to perceive as the legacy of their memory’s first President….the man they have till date seen on T.V. as  the leader of their country? What will they remember about Oh-bama?

I am very proud already that my oldest daughter- a 3^rd grader will forever remember that her first recollections of her country’s President are that of a tall, lanky man, with a tightly grazed salt and pepper hair, and a skin color that was not remarkable at all! In being who he is, The President, the leader, the wise one, the smiling one, the funny one, I hope that for this cohort of elementary kids, he has made color a non-issue. Perhaps he has. And if we are lucky, maybe he has made being non-white a normal. Going by the entire spectrum of things that my daughters say they want to be, that they think they can be, from gymnasts, and pianists to astronauts, and Presidents(!), I am somewhat confident that they, at least as of today, do not know, nor believe in skin color. And that is a big thing.

It is a big thing, because unfortunately, this is also an era of a resurgence of Black Lives Matter. A bigger misfortune is that there is a need for the resurgence of Black Lives Matter. Personally for me, it is somewhat incredible that in the sixteen years that I have been in the U.S., racial tensions have so flared up, and become so center-stage, now, under the presidency of a black President. Obama had nothing to do with what happened to Trayvon Martin in 2012, and to the subsequent galvanizing of the Black Movement. Yet his seemingly impromptu (or at the least unexpected) rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ in the Charleston Church at the funeral service for Rev. Pinckney- one of 9 people gunned down by a racist terrorist, in 2015, was a soulful alignment with his identity…that of a Black man. And it has not been an easy, nor a straightforward, journey to this identity for him. And one can see why?

By the latest census available, that of 2010, we can see that even in the highly demographically diverse universe of our country today, only 9.5% of all married couples in the U.S. are inter-racial. And of this, only a little over 422,000 are a black and white combination. Understandably, Mrs. Obama (Senior)’s choice of a black husband back in the 60s would not have been taken easily, not by her family, nor by friends. And yet, from what Barack recalls in his biographical book Dreams From My Father, his Kansas native white grandparents who themselves were then recent transplants in Hawaii, rarely exhibited an emotion that reflected systemic opposition to the blackness of their son-in-law. In fact the absent Obama was always spoken of in high praises, mainly for his academic strides -raised in rural Kenya reaching all the way to Harvard, via Hawaii, and for his charming personality complete with a sharp sense of dressing and an erudite wit to accompany that.

Little Barry is growing up in an all white household, surrounded by a white mother and white grandparents. He probably looks at the mirror, but he is still too small to see that no one in his family looks like him. His progenitor, the giver of all that’s black about him, his father, is gone from Hawaii, first to pursue his degree in Harvard, and then back to Kenya, to be with his first wife, their children, his village full of family, in a country beckoning with promises in the newly found independence.

Barack Obama would only meet his living father once at age ten. But before that he would shuttle from one continent to another with that one person who always believed in him and who never abandoned him, his mother. After Barack Senior left Hawaii and was gone for more than four years, his mother dated and eventually re-married, another foreign student on the campus of the University of Hawaii, this time an Indonesian. Barry would reach Asia as a six year old, to stay there for three years. He would see first hand what it meant to live in a world where nothing was to be taken for granted. He would live in a stucco house with a mango tree full of monkeys in the front yard, and birds, dogs and baby alligators in the backyard. He would walk through dirt roads with village vagrants picking up fights, and returning home with bloodied face and bruises he tried desperately to hide from a mother who could see her only son falling through the cracks. She would supplement his Indonesian schooling with American education, teaching him herself from course packs that she diligently ordered by mail. But Indonesia was itself undergoing political upheavals and Barry’s mom resented how her husband was changing with the power he had negotiated in the new set up. She wanted her son to know better. Barry was sent back to Hawaii.

Barry, a ten year old black kid, is admitted to Punahou Academy in Hawaii, one of the country’s top pre-schools. He gets in there after multiple rounds of interviews and innumerable paper work. Gradually, Barry is beginning to see how he is different from the majority of people around him. He is not only a black kid in a largely white school, but he is also one of the few students who comes from a fairly modest household compared to the majority who come from stable and affluent ones. He has his white mother’s eye brows (as his mother would often joke with him), but there is no denying that he is not white. It could not have been easy for him to assimilate the looks, and the behavior of people around him when they reacted to him as they would to someone Black, in the 60s, or even the 70s. He is practically all white in terms of who is raising him, the house he is being nurtured in, and the school he is attending. But he can’t scream his mixed identity to everyone he meets, because not all introductions lend easily to such topics, and two, most importantly, something inside him wants him not to use his half invisible yet firmly true half whiteness as a license to sneak into a group of his choice.

As Harper Lee would write in To Kill A Mockingbird, referring to someone with a mixed heredity,

“…They’re real sad.”

“Sad, how come?”

“They don’t belong anywhere. Colored folks won’t have ‘em because they’re half white, white folks won’t have ‘em ‘cause they’re colored, so they’re just in-betweens, don’t belong anywhere.”

Barry loves his mother and grandparents, but there is probably a ‘sadness’ which he can’t fathom, and he is thus beginning to feel an affinity for that which is absent from his life---the Blackness of his Black Father. Because in accepting his own blackness, he finds acceptance, in that which is true about him. This acceptance empowers him, and despite the typical trials and travails of adolescence, he eventually nurtures an understanding, and an empathy for not just Blacks but for all who are marginalized, and misunderstood. And that is how a Harvard Law Graduate refuses to accept high figure lawyerly jobs, to become a grassroots community organizer, not in Boston nor in New York, but on the South Side of Chicago. And rest as we all know is recent history, fascinating history and of course one that educates us about how, when we are lucky, we get thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate people to become our leaders.

As a mother, I had initially felt spurned by the fact that Barack Obama decided to write a book in the name of his father, even when his father had abandoned him. I felt betrayed for the mother, who carried him with her wherever she went, and actively shaped his experiences for the better. That was until I read the revised foreword for the book, and I felt truly relieved and almost rewarded. Reflecting on his mother who had died a few months after the book was first published, he writes ‘I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book-less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life.’

As a mother, it pleases me immensely to know that regardless of what aspect of Barack Obama my children will choose to examine tomorrow as adults, they will know that within him he encompassed the true spirit of being an American. He is black, and white, and caring.

...And this year's Nobel goes to......BOB DYLAN!!!!

This is what happens when the likes of Arundhati Roy, and Jhumpa Lahiri, stop writing, or stop writing fiction in the case of the latter, and the likes of Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth come out with a piece only once in so many years.....guess then whose left? Bob Dylan it is! 

Really a Nobel Prize for Literature? For literature did you say? ....To Bob Dylan? 

Yes, he is a prolific, and a good song writer (and singer...yes, we know)....but still. This is literature we are talking about. Literature is contemplative, it's the expression of the subtle in a subtle yet universally woven tale. It is the telling of the tales of innumerable through the voices of the few. It is about taking us to unseen lands and unknown heights through the voyages of mere mortals and the imagined immortals. And yes, Dylan did write a few timeless songs, which without his thus meaning to, went on to become anthems for movements. However, a Nobel for literature? If I recall it right, it used to be given for a huge body of literary work that was more than a collection of just popular songs? 

Dylan- for who he has been, a singer, song-writer, and an all time inspiring performer, did deserve one of the highest civilian honors that was bestowed on him by President Obama in 2011, and an honorable mention in the Pulitzer Prize in the past was acceptable too. Give him a lifetime achievement award for his line of work. Create a grand Grammy for him. But a Nobel in Literature? It is said that of all the nominees considered by the Nobel Committee in any one year,  only the winner's name is revealed. The other names are kept secret for the next fifty years. I am assuming that quite a few of those whose names were there, would not be alive by that time. Good for them for never knowing they were rejected in favor of someone who deserved everything but the Nobel for Literature.

And Language Should Never Be a Barrier Any More

अब तक यह कैसे संभव रहा की हिंदी में जैसे कुछ लिखा ही नहीं?

सोलह साल? एक और दो नहीं, पुरे सोलह साल हो गए, और हिंदी के प्रयोग की आवष्यकता ही नहीं हुई. सच ऐसा होता है क्या की हिंदी में सोचते हैं, हिन्दी को बोलते हैं, हिंदी को पहनते हैं....
ना हिन्दू को नहीं, हिंदी को, 
परन्तु हिंदी को लिखा नहीं?

अंग्रेजी में बोलना, लिखना, पढ़ना, सब आसानी से होता रहा तो ज़रुरत ही नहीं हुई हिंदी की. फिर? 
फिर, बच्चों को हिंदी बोलते देखने की इच्छा जागी, क्यों ? 

क्योंकि जब अपने जैसे दीखते बच्चे अपने मुहावरो की सुन्दरता को नहीं सराह पाते, जब हमारे जैसे नामों वाले छोटे छोटे चेहरों पर हिंदी तरानों से जुड़े हिंदी के बोल नहीं आ पाते, और जब 'जूठन' शंब्द के लिए इन बच्चों पे कोई शब्द ही नहीं होता---अंग्रेजी में शब्द नहीं है, और हिंदी इन्हे आती नहीं, तब एहसास होता है की हम हिंदी से जानकार माता -पिता के पास एक कितनी सुन्दर धरोहर है, जो हम इन छोटे छोटे अंतर्राष्ट्रीय नागरिकों को दे सकते हैं. 

मेरे पास हिंदी है, और मैं इन्हे हिंदी दूँगी. यदि तुम्हारे पास मराठी है तो तुम उन्हें वो दो. भाषा---जितनी जानेंगे हम, मेरा यह विश्वास है, की हम उतना जान पाएंगे अपनी जड़ों को, और औरों के नज़रियों को, उनकी विचार धारा को. 

मुझे अंग्रेजी में ही अभी कितना सीखना है. मात्र अंग्रेजी के शब्द-कोष को जान लेने से ही मैं कहाँ मेरे अमरीकी साथियों से आसानी से घुल मिल पाई हूँ? इस देश में हूँ, पर इस देश की नहीं हूँ. और यूं बटा हुआ रहना मानो कटा हुआ रहना है. कुछ तड़पन के साथ रहना है.  

कहते हैं सुख और दुःख की एक भाषा है पूरे विश्व में. इतना साधारण नहीं है सत्य। भाषा वो समझ आती है जिसके रहस्यों को जान लिया गया है. मुस्कराहट को खिखिलाने से अलग पहचाना जाए, आँसूओ की नमि को रोने से भिन्न माना जाए. 

एक उम्र निकल जाएगी हमें उन्हें समझने में, 
हम कोशिश कर रहे हैं, वह बस इतना समझ लें!

हिंदी, अंग्रेजी, स्पेनिश, जो भी भाषा जान के, जितने नजरिोयों के संग हम कुछ दूूर चल सकेंगे उतना हम जान पाएंगे की कुछ खोने पे दुःख सबको होता है, कुछ पाने पे ख़ुशी भी स्वाभाविक है.... हर व्यक्ति के लिए....चाहे वह कितना ही भिन्न दीखता हो हम से.  

Be-logger

And out of the blue, one day, in the busy busy world of internet traffic, you stumble upon a page, that looks vaguely familiar. You stare at it long enough for you to realise that Holy Crap (!) you created this baby once, in the heat of a passion for expression and a burning desire to describe. Oh gosh ! In that past avatar of yours you created that blog page, because when nothing else seemed to fit what you did, you decided it was okay to tack on the 'title' of a blogger to yours! And just like that the blogging disappeared, while you kept basking in the sliver of a glow that comes with the funky titles, like that of a 'blogger'.

That is me, and this abandoned piece of virtual real-estate is mine. Time to claim it,  I think. Though what does a blogger do? Key in the quotidian and punctuate with the extraordinaire? Gotta be ready to be vulnerable, and walk the tight rope of private vs public thought? It's doable, I am assured, by my own self!


  

Ah! the Luxury of Feeling Hot Outside in Layers of Clothes!

One really has to have a perspective to appreciate the big, as well as the small things in life. And perspective comes with time, with experiences, with the ability to change the glasses through which we look, to those of who we are looking at. In the endlessly arctic cold month of February here on the East Coast, the grey and white had become the norm. The Hindu festival of colors--Holi came on March 6--one of the coldest nights. We stayed indoors through the day, not bothering to put any color on anyone, lest we be bothered to wash up----who wanted any extra tinge of water on oneself in these cold days? We began to think this is what it is, will be forever.

Then today happened. Is happening. There is a bright big sun, and a clear blue sky and lots of warm sunshine out there...in my yard, on my house, on the streets, and everywhere I can see. Creatures of habit, we still stepped out with two layers of woolies. And ah, the luxury of feeling hot outside in those clothes!

If it weren't for those colorless cold days of yesterday, I would not have sung with joy today. It is NOT summer yet, and even spring is a bit far.....the grounds are full of tons of snow dumped on us over the last many snowstorms. And yet, today is joyous because I have come out of yesterday. My experience of today is framed by the numbness of the days of yore.

I still marvel at the non-stop supply of electricity in my house in the U.S. because I have lived an innumerable number of days and nights through outages in India. I am very reluctant to let go of the empty plastic yogurt tub, because I know these plastic tubs can be used to store stuff; we had to buy such plastic boxes (if they were available) for some good money when I was growing up, in India. I still have money in good old plain CDs, because stock markets crashed in the past.

To find the pleasure in the moment in hand, I don't forget the pains I have endured. See...all this thinking is what a surprise sunny day can do to me! Bring on the Sunshine, soak me in it.