So it starts out with a text i am reading, and as i read i am whizzing by the images from the text as if in a train and i hear the writer repeating 

"I kept fishing with the same bait over and over and over" and i see ahead of us, of the text-images and me, a deep chasm over which hangs a rope bridge, the kind i know i will never cross if not in a dream and then i am at the other end and looking back at the text-image world with an ache i can only describe as love and i try to point my camera at what had just gone by, so somehow i can show the writer what i saw, blindly believing that might bring some relief to the writer and i keep looking through my camera eye which shows me a vibrant fastmoving crowd rushing across the bridge but none of the bridge and even less of the text-image world. Not even hints of it in the camera vision. And then my people flustered by my lateness so i move on without even a photo to keep fishing with the same ache over and over and over. 

On reading Dreams of Trespass : Tales of a Harem Girlhood.

Last night I fell asleep willing my subconscious to weave a dream about Fatima's mom's and Chama's embroidery,blue stitches falling defiantly yet gracefully one after the other on a brilliant red cloth, a bird and its dreams of flight coming together on cloth. No winged birds came to my dreams, at least none i can recollect. The only image that surfaced from memory is that of sunshine slanting through the high windows of my childhood home, brilliant sunshine in which countless tiny circles danced.

The book is Mernissi's memoir of growing up in a harem in the northern city of Fez in Morocco. Before reading this book the image conjured up by the word harem was that of a sultan in his royals garbs reclining majestically while exotic dancers and servants revolved around him. My ignorance of an entire culture. A harem is just a home, and little Fatima had a happy childhood within it in early 1940s when Morocco was under the French.The French soldiers had set up a frontier in the city, they simply built a gate there and called it a frontier. The natives who had never known a frontier to be there were baffled, they now needed permission to cross their own land. "To create a frontier all you need is soldiers to force others to believe in it. The landscape doesn't change".

There was another frontier established long ago in Fatima's house -the house gate. The Marnissi family lived together in the harem, grandmother, two sons, their families, widowed or divorced aunts and women who were formerly kept as slaves by the family.The harem was surrounded by walls and an iron gate guarded by their gate keeper. The children could step out with permission from their parents. Not the women. Allah has made frontiers to keep peace, Fatima's father said, and to trespass was to bring sorrow. Some women agreed, a harem protects they said.Some others dreamed of trespassing all the time. At her maternal grandfather's farm in the countryside Fatima experienced a harem with no walls and gate surrounding it.The open fields startled her, how can one be safe in the open fields without frontiers? There is no need for walls, her grandmother explained to her frontiers are within, a law tattooed in the mind. This invisible frontier tattooed within oneself ruffled her even further, she would rather have visible walls and gatekeepers than inner boundaries.

Reading Fatima's uneasiness and fear of the open fields brought to my mind the image of my son's pet parrot who keeps gnawing at the cage's bars even when the doors are left wide open. An image which gnaws at me. Theorists say the oppressed often internalize their inferiority or otherness, women internalize patriarchal values and contribute towards continuing the system. The book has pushed me out of my stupefying comfort - the harem within and without, the caged bird reluctant to step out, images i am sure i will carry within for long.

In the beginning of the story we see Fatima as a young girl sitting on the threshold of her mother's salon gazing at her house as if she had never seen it before: its square rigid courtyard surrounded by an arched colonnade supported by four columns on each side each with symmetrical tile work, heavy brocades and velvet draping the windows, colored glass arches. Everything was ruled by symmetry in the architecture of the house. Even the marble fountain and its waterfall seemed contained and tamed. The square man made frame however could not tame the sky which dazzled her on early mornings with pink and purple shades and movement of its stars. Slowly it dawned on me that the harem architecture indicates not just the physical structure around her, but all the controlling structures including religion and culture which attempts to guide and tame the lives of all within. There is so much more to say about this book, so much more of layers yet to unravel. The architecture is not without cracks, Fatima's gaze found the staircases to the terraces under open skies. in this way to me the book suggests that any imposing and long standing structure when gazed at as if for the first time, when studied closely will show cracks or flaws which could then be rewritten. As Yasmina, her grandmother tells her the rules are not fair for the women because they were not written by the women, one needs to learn the structure and learn to speak with authority to rewrite the rules. I think this is exactly what muslim feminists like Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud did and continue to do, re-reading, re-writing. The book has so much more layers for me to read, so much more to see. Much Love to the brave women who dared.

There is a certain comfort in knowing that someone else has held the book you are reading and experienced what you are experiencing. The thoughts that the book invoke in you - no, not exactly thoughts- the inchoate swirling things which you struggle to express, which you dare not to express for fear of losing hem in the very act of wording them- someone else has been there. Someone else is right here with you partaking in  the experience silently.

Thank you google and facebook, for all those neat little drawers to scatter oneself away just like one sweeps a loose button or loose coins into a drawer. now for some place to dump all this blind rage to stumble out.

Sun-dried tomatoes

A small piece of rope – blue, plastic- one end tied to one of the pillars of a makeshift shed and the other to a nearby tree, maybe three feet long, or shorter … a few items of clothing hanging , all worn out, not spread out like washing left to dry... more like weary thoughts dumped together.

i saw this image – not so much image as a few feeble lines barely touching- i saw it the third or the fourth day of drying the tomatoes. The tomatoes had started to wilt by then and since the days were long and nights hotter i had felt confident about leaving the tomatoes out till dinner time. The first time i bit into a piece of sun-dried tomatoes in a sandwich hurriedly eaten at a bleak airport lounge it was like tasting the warmth of sunshine caressing the tomato vines, i must make this, i had noted as countless tomatoes ripened and burst on my tongue. Some days later i picked some spotless roma tomatoes, sweet smelling basil and a canning jar at the grocery. Washed and dried, the deep red tomatoes with their soft shining skin were a sight to behold. Cut into halves their insides were achingly beautiful, tints of persimmon and pink with ruby red veins weaving through the flesh and around perfectly shaped seeds. i spread them on a wire rack, sprinkled salt on them and left them out in the balcony. Sun shone on the tomatoes and they quickly wilted and withered, their skin puckered and each red ovals magically took on unique shapes, and by the end of the week i was left with a handful of the most delightful, most zesty sun-dried tomatoes. i packed them in the canning jar filling it up with olive oil and the jar, oh the jar with deep red tomatoes and green basil and plump white garlic and black peppercorn stood on my kitchen counter spurring anyone who looked at it to take up painting.

And those washed out clothes; they still hang warily on to the tiny stretch of time in between sleep and wakefulness, in danger of falling down to oblivion any moment.

You

Thinking about you is like running my finger along your chin, foretasting the gentle rise and fall of your dimple, savoring the prickle of your stubble.

Thinking about thinking about you is like watching white clouds waft through a sky,

forever changing, forever escaping my gaze, white clouds forever getting lost in the blue

leaving me

a whole new sky.

Because i cannot see into darkness

Everyday these days a metaphor meets my eye and straining to capture it i start sentences like this one, only to strike it out and begin anew. Like an old apartment building, stripped off of its life, awaiting demolishment- and in mid-sentence the thought inevitably fizzle out.

Stepping away from the clamor of life i pull back my window curtains to see it, an old apartment building waiting to be demolished. No word i know can carry the weight of its emptiness- empty, vacant, abandoned- none says it. Its windows and doors and air conditioners have been torn off leaving behing yawning holes to the centre of its emptiness. Peering through these gaps i see how each apartment was once a home, that sort of place you call your own when you are out in the world, that sort of place entering which, especially alone at night, your hand juts out for human contact just to overcome the moment. All the bits and pieces left behind - broken furnitures, torn blankets, one faded teddy bear- further fills the place with nothingness. If this abandoned building was left there as a joke the punchline has to be the swear word someone painted on one of its pillars, a bold f and u, a wavering c, a timid k and a hazy u ; a punchline losing its fizz as its told.

Because my eyes cannot go all the way into it i send my words to grapple it. I seize it! but in a moment it thrashes about violently, gashes my hands with its gills and escapes my grasp.

Some of the best moments in life are spent waiting

It starts as a fluttering in a corner, your body picks it up, and then you know you are waiting for a memory to happen. If someone passing by happens to see your face now, she or he will remember your face after a long period of time and will be unable to shrug off a sense of familiarity.
You know you are waiting for it to happen, not as a tap on your shoulder but more as something gushing towards you. You know the moment the warm flesh of the memory touches you, you will recognize it, not as a missing piece of your remembered life, but as carrying new voices and new scents, and you will welcome it as your own.

Absent tense

Millions revolted for basic rights in Egypt, a girl got pushed off a train and raped in Kerala, and an avalanche slid down somewhere. Millions more will revolt, the girl will die , and i will continue to polish my furniture to a brilliant shine.

Story time

It is touching to see stories work their charm on a two year old. The eagerness with which she innocently enters the unknown world in the story, her impatience to know what comes next- will the poochakutty find a home?, her sorrowfilled eyes holding in its sympathetic gaze the rain drenched poochakutty , the sheer joy in her face at the happy ending - she comes out of each story changed in some intangible way. Every story lures her out of herself and her known world, teaches her to open up to the mysteries of life and immerse herself in the suffering and sorrows and happiness that is not her own. Each story makes her world richer. For how long will she be protected from knowing that all stories need not have a happy ending?

Mamma

Angelface sleeps, her fingers clutching mamma's hand, her head nestling over the crook of mamma's arm, her face tilted towards mamma's, mouth slightly open.
Open up my little flower, don't cling on to me
open windows into the world and into yourself, my little butterfly
fly far, soar high, give in to the lure of the blue skies
So mamma brings in a book.
Look, kitty has a red ball and bowbow has a blue ball. now here comes a little bowbow. why's little bowbow crying? kitty gives a yellow ball to little bowbow and look now little bowbow is happy and smiling
Baby sleeps clutching on to bowbow and kitty, her cheek resting on the book, legs outstretched as though ready for flight. And then mamma yearns to throw away the book and cradle her precious one in her arms.

At the hotel

i watched two women watching a woman swim at the puddle shaped pool, it was like watching music with eyes closed.
With her cup paused midway in its way to her lips the woman at the third floor window watched the woman at the pool swim as though her body was being poured into water, and from the seventh floor window the woman in the house keeper's garb craned her neck and watched the woman at the pool swim as though she could bring her entire life to this moment. Someday as we thrash about gasping for breath, the woman with the cup, the woman in the housekeeper's garb and i will fish out this memory and swim through the day, so quit telling me it is not possible to see the woman who swam and the women who watched from my window.

A wrecked pier, some trees, an old man, and so on

On our last day at college my friend, who is by no means overtly emotional or disposed to tears, went around hugging the huge pillars lining the corridors of college. I pulled her legs to no end. I should have known better.

The city I call home has a long stretch of beach and we spent a good part of our childhood frolicking in the waves. We would dump our sandals somewhere and dash into the water- those days we could leave everything behind and move on. The wind, the waves, the music. If we looked up from our play we could see the long old iron pier stretching into the sea. Calicut's own historian MGS Narayanan says that this pier was built in 1871, and it was a place of hectic activity with the spice trade in full swing. As kids we were least bothered by the splendid history of the pier. It was just there. Like your first memories of waking up at the middle of the night and stretching both your arms to touch mom and dad, we could look up any moment from our play and it would be there. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about the structure, just an iron pier with the waves lashing against the pillars.

Last time i went home i saw that the pier was almost gone. Gone is a bad bad word. A few disjointed pillars stood there looking shaken. Have you ever been away for a year or two from your dear ones and then been hit by the sights of their beaten faces showing decades of aging?But then this is just an old useless pier and we had hardly ever noticed it while it was there. Now that it is gone i begin to see it vividly even in the middle of a traffic jam in a busy highway in the US.

Some afternoons i take my baby girl for a stroll in the neighbourhood, and everytime we see an old man sitting on a corner park bench gazing at a clump of pine trees. One day i might just gather up the courage to walk up to him and ask him what he is looking at, or what he is looking for. Does those trees take him to some other place? some other time? There is a very unique tree nearby the railway track in front of the building which hosts Sangeeth cool bar in Calicut. A wall goes right next to it and its roots pierce and emerge through the wall and run all along it intertwined. It's simply a treat for the eyes, the roots weaving in and out of the moss covered wall. Everytime i see it am moved.There is something that i ought to do, i'm just not sure what. Go and touch the roots? Take a picture? dunno. i wish i had hugged those pillars that day with her.

Us

We

give and take..... take and give

live and love..... love and live

and

leave

the invisible wall

between

intact.

How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea?

How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea? our hostess asked; a silver spoonful of sugar paused over a cup. Silverware gleamed, crystal vases sparkled and soft lighting threw its warmth on us. She gracefully measured and added sugar to each of our cups, half a spoonful for Parag, two spoonsful for Kiran, a spoonful each for Ramya and Azhar, and so on. Garam chai and bhajias, Kishore kumar's deep voice and a roaring fire in the fire place. We sat scattered on sleek leather couches, as our carefully measured words slithered out, greeted each other, paused, and vanished into thin air before they could mean something. Outside the door lie a world where Narendra Modi wears the crown for the second time, and Mullas sit in dark corners sowing hatred into insecure minds. How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea, dear?

lone

A withered leaf
cracked me
open.

Some days

Some days you write just to hear the krikkettykrat of pen on paper. You let go the drive to communicate, to elicit a response, to mean. Some days its just for the pleasure of seeing the letters pop up, come together and define their own form on the blank page.

Some days i smell a riot in my masala-dabba. The moment i open the dabba everyone sits still, holding their breaths, but not before they can scramble back to their places. That's how i catch the cloves tearing into the chilli powder which bleeds on the jeera as mustard seeds try to hide between fenugreek seeds.

Some days it is as though an abyss hides in my doorway. I step out
fall
fall
fall
through a blur and the pine trees outside stand startled as I meekly fumble around.

i let days like these slide off my mind, careful not to let them cling on, careful not to let their gazillion spokes scratch me. Some days one has to write just to hear the clickettyclak of the keyboard.

while it lasts

Is there something more to mehendi than what meets the eye? Are untold tales woven into its intricate patterns? Is it a secret language, a signal, a symbol, a silent reaching out like the quilts made by people escaping slavery? That just sounds too far-fetched.

What is it then about the mehendi that rustles memory, teases emotions and sends a song to your tongue , even whan you know that it cannot last for long? Is it just another way to love this earth and all it holds before everything fades away? All i can be sure of is that while it lasts i'm in love with red red mehendi.

Reading a used book

A quaint smell stretches out its arms from within the pages, the smell of all those hands that had once held the book with so much love.
'arf arf' barks a dog-ear 'here's an enchanting page', and another tugs at you 'this is where my reader drifted into a catnap'.
Nifty creases running all along the yellow pages hint at all the hidden paths in the book.
A pencilled star winks at you from the corner of a page; somebody has been willing to share with you a moment of epiphany.
Tea colored wishy-washy clouds and greasy smudges; clearly words were not the only ones devoured.
And somewhere a lonely soul once sat clutching at this book so hard as though it could steer a way through life, so hard that the book was moved and loosened its binds

...one hasn't even started reading the book.

Deja vu

This afternoon sunlight poured from above, tripped and tumbled over the dancing leaves and a windchime laughed in a distance. You slept through it, your cheek warming my shoulder. I will scoop up the glittering light from the leaves, pluck out the windchime's laughter, squeeze out the scent of pines and press it all together in between the pages of the telephone directory, so that sometime tomorrow we will plop this afternoon into our mouths and savor its wild sweetness. Sometime tomorrow you and i will lie down on the greenest grass and gaze at this afternoon sky, as the light trips and falls over the dancing leaves and the windchime bursts out in glee. We will watch till the blue seeps into us, we will watch till our eyes are quenched, and then you'll turn around and shoot a kick and i'll follow your lead , and the dogwood trees beside us will chuckle and shed a photo. Look mamma, it's us you'll shout, and in the photo you and i will be lying on greenest grass, as leaves danced and light tripped and windchime giggled and scent of pines curled out. I'd be vaguely surprised too.