where am i...

..somewhere in between

thoughts of changing the world

and poetry

Pajamas: discarded fairly early (but i got up really late - somewhere early noon), blue and white. :)

I could be...

...charging my mobile phone, which makes complaints like an underfed pet.
...watching two youtubes, one finished loading, one still loading.
...working on my unfinished, sometimes unstarted, novel.
...writing poetry.
...writing postcards to friends as I had imagined (the imaginary postcards, not the friends).
...taking a shower, being in daytime clothes, appropriate for the present hour of 3:33pm.

...but then I would not be a Pajama Girl. And you know what, that is such unmissable bliss - why give that away? :)

So, speaking of pajama habits, which will be recorded henceforth.

Presently: blue pajamas, with dark-grey anorak to keep off the cold filtering in through my balcony. Said balcony brings in air from the Nile, of which I do have a not-too-bad view, albeit blocked by a few piles of concrete. (Although one must remember, one lives in said pile of concrete, too).

Time till which was in Pajama-uniform: 3:36 plus.

Yesterday I went to a poorly-attended desi concert at the Gomhorriya theatre, featuring some really commendable performances by Indian artistes. It felt so good to go up to countrymen after and talk to them. They were all very cordial, too. I would love to culturally liaise with India. It's a very tempting thought, that might almost convince me to stay. It would be like having one foot in each of the worlds I love best: Egypt and India.

For long now, I've been waxing nostalgic and pathetic about moving back to India - coming up with the hackneyed, "but the pani puri of India," and "but the Diwali of India," and "but the movies of India," and sometimes even "but the boys of India." (look what I've come to).

So yeah, at times, it does seem like I've reached high time to leave Umm el Duniya (Egypt), and return to the MatruBhumi (India). And following on that temptation, I have applied to publishers a la HarperCollins, hoping they'll give me a second glance. :)

Reasons they should take me.
1) I am funny. I can talk like an Indian and walk like an Egyptian.
2) I know I am funny. I was and am mental - I admit.
3) That makes me funnier. If I can make fun of me, you can make fun of me. What an irresistible offer.

Plus, I like pajama-lifestyle. How no-fussy can you get? Feed me pani puri, show me Indian movie, give me a holiday on Diwali and dangle a picture of Abhishek Bacchan at me - and I'm sold. Will work. How hard is that?

But I don't think HC are reading this, and if they are.... well, they should take me! :)

Otherwise, I'll be shaking hands and taking pictures with the Indians that make it here for concerts, lectures, talks, events... and write about them.

Signing off - the phoenix rising from her bedcovers. Pajama girl signs off at late afternoon 3:45 pm. Proudly Pajamas.
love.

EGOogling

...is ego-googling, on those days that you wonder where you are situated online and try to find the threads that tie you to the world wide web. At least, many of us can make our own home here.

On one such search, I discovered www.facesaerch.com (misspell is accounted for), and found that omigawd they have stolen pictures of people online!! grrr!

Otherwise, EGOogling led to the revelation that someone else picked up article I had written for the local news. It's good to know that people as far away as Ireland are following the literary goings-on in Cairo. :)

the content of my days...

Don't quite know how, but I've managed to fill my days with so much of doing not much. would like to post more...

Main yahaan ajnabi hoon...

...and maybe the sense of being foreign to a place is really not that foreign. :)

It doesn't have to be a country, it could just be a roomful of "friends" that aren't quite that - but uncanny faces that you just did not anticipate. The familiar turns unfamiliar.

Perhaps it is good for the eyesight. Perhaps it is a reminder that you are not blind - that things you see are not even.

As a result, I approach strangers cautiously now. Even I am turning unfamiliar to myself.

I bought a book on psychology, presumably to understand minds better - but I think the mind that most fascinates me is my own. I don't know it at all.

afterthought...

...come to think of it, that moment of articulation was actually in an online conversation, which involves written as well as 'spoken' speech.

that is where the catalyst kicks in then.

***********

on another poetic note, i read ondaatje again after a long, long while..


The Cinammon Peeler
By Michael Ondaatje


If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.


You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

say what?

because for hours now, and for the past two posts, i have been skirting around the issue - and i should just say it.

i'm a good evader.

but Brian McFarlan's Drop the Pink Elephant, which is devoted entirely to correctness in one's spoken interactions, has had me thinking. I can be unkind in speech.

I remember this allegory someone sent once. A boy's father tells him to hammer nails into the fence every time he feels angry. The boy starts out with many nails a day, and slowly there are less nails in the fence. Then for every day that he isn't angry, the father asks him to remove the nails.

Each nail, the father points out, is like a harsh word said in anger. The hurts go deep, and what's worse is that you cannot really take them back. When you remove the nail, the hole is still there.

And I've said harsh words in complete jest - because I find it makes one tough - what with one's British education. And I often find that among journalists - a clique to which I do not entirely belong, but to which I often aspire - snideness is the rule of the day; it's what sets you apart.

Because saying, "You're smart, aren't you?" is just so much more of a sharper nail than "Stupid."