Talking with the enemy

Ever since I grew my curls
I miss you less.

Give in to the night.

Give in to the night,
That thing called sleep.

But it seems the day is unfinished, and sleep cannot be so easily earned.

Been thinking lately how abstaining from talking may help writing, venting the inner conversation about things that need not be discussed, but simply transferred to paper (or blog), and developed further. 

So lately I've been really touchy about the issue of 'appreciation,' about 'how much I have done for so-and-so' and how ungrateful they have been.

And it made me think about C, and how he seemed to run from all my 'help,' because it probably did come with strings attached, even if those strings attached no particular end, but only a particular person - me. Stay close to ME, they'd say, tying him in a web of an intimacy sought through favours that could not be returned, and should not be returned.

And it also made me realise that for a very long time, I may have been seeking to sell favours, for something unspoken in return. Sometimes I say I Joyful Girl, but other times I'm not so Ani diFranco about it. Hell even Ani diFranco isn't so selfless about it, if she needs to remind herself.

And sometimes I resent it so much, this sense that because of all this unsolicited giving, I've been taken for granted. Or worse that people see it, and don't want it anymore, favours that don't come for a named price, that make them feel weighed and sentenced to you on indefinite terms.

Fuck them.

I hate this children's-book mental image of the world, where it echoes back whatever you send forth.

"Fuck you, world!"

"Well, fuck you too, child!"

It's so hard to say the opposite when you're having one of those moments with the world.

"You're pissing me off right now, world, but it's not you, it's me. And someday soon, I will see you are all beautiful... It kind of evades me now."

Sounds like a break up.


Strangely at the same time there have been contemplations on commitment - on marriage and lowering expectations. And it makes an awful lot of sense that people are going to change and hate each other's guts, and what endures is something else than the passion which seems to be the only thing people associate with love these days. (These days, as if I had had incarnations of marital experience).



Well, Feck It. :P

Probably my most poorly constructed post ever, but Feck It too. 

I Give In To Reading Which Gives In To The Night.

And so it is

Thank you, Rachel.

If not a book, at least this blog is revived thanks to you.

And there it is again, the fear of revealing too much, the fear of being too honest while looking at a mirror for fear that what I may see would be too ugly. It's the inner venom - funny enough, C.K. used that word too to describe my spewing. Maybe it hurt because it was so right.

This is going to come out like a journal, and maybe you were hoping for more creative work.

Well, too bad, innit? ;)

So I've been feeling bummed, and since that's all I care to think about I'll just write about that till I bore myself.

And just then, I see this, so pretty - a reversible fabric bag I bought at the FleaMarket in Germany, handcrafted by someone and for EURO 5 but worth so much more... happiness and a smile for brightening an otherwise glum moment.

I leave you with this:

May we create and enjoy such prettiness, all the time :)

No one will read this

That is what I have to tell myself before I blog these days, because I am too afraid and too silent. So you are not really reading this. :)
....
... I'm blocked again, because I acknowledged you.

I wish I was Mary Oliver, kind and old and wise. But especially I'd have liked to be kind, to myself, to you. Here is what Mary Oliver would have said:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


and here is what I can say...

...
...

Looking at You

You sit quietly so well:
your hands don't fidget,
your lips do not tremble.

If it were not for your eyes,
your large, overwhelming eyes,
I would not know you were
crying.


I wrote the above but I do not like the above. Mainly because it ends with 'crying' - I wish I had found another way to say it, but right now am not keen to find another way, am lazy - and I just want to get this on paper before it disappears like other lines in my head. Lines like:
"I like to stare at dead things." I'm going to try to put that in a story. A story that has another line like "Then why do you keep our pictures still?"

Cinco Poemas de Amor

Pride has no place on overcrowded
buses on longish journeys.
the seat next to mine is empty
i saved it
for you.

***********************************

S. during Cairo Revolution, on Facebook

its not possible

to say something normal

except, i wish i had a girlfriend

i could talk to in the night

when the day is over

but probably it would weaken me

and take too much time

so i wish i could read a story

or at least have the time for it

because in my phantasy i wanna go away and far

to a marvellous place

where there are stories

about humans

***********************************

Definition: Found Poetry

Poetry that finds you
You find it back sometimes.


***********************************

Do you still have feelings for him / her?

Do you still have feelings?

That is all right perhaps, because then

He / She too may have feelings for you, and

You still have feelings.

***********************************

Pretty thoughts pass my mind so often

But they pass like clouds

and I forget or fail to collect

the words they rain on me.

***********************************

Cairo to Mumbai: Home away from home

When I left India, we left Nasik via "Bombay" to get to Cairo. Now, 18 years later, I've returned to "Mumbai" to make a home. Coming to "Mumbai" feels like coming home, but still nothing like Cairo, the mother's heart, the "Um el Dunya" (Mother of the World).

I'm fortunate to live in a very green part of town in Bandra. Every now and then, the greenery catches my breath, and so do the stars overhead. It's less polluted here, but still polluted. Sitting in a rickshaw while riding makes commuting a noisier (and bumpier) experience than ever before - more than Cairo cabbies, one would never have suspected! Still, people brave the day, and the night: the other day I found a group of cyclists at Carter Road at 9.30 pm. They were training other beginners in the art of safe cycling.

The city is always abuzz - things take place every day: poetry slams, board game nights, dancing, music, culture, there is so much to explore - and it seems the geography of wealth is reversed - from the developing North Mumbai to the opulent South. I'm learning names, and am blissfully unaware of so many things. It feels so good to not know; to not know a face, not know all the big names, not know the proper way about things. It forces me out of my 'self', forces me to ask others, and to acknowledge my dependence. Equally, I think, it jolts others into realizing that what is familiar and assumed can be foreign and not so to others.

Luckily my friend MD has moved to Mumbai around the same time, and there is a bit of Cairo in Mumbai. I am still seeking for someone to speak with in Arabic, and want to actually overdose on it, read, watch, eat all things Egyptian. I've never before read the Daily News Egypt as much, nor tweeted as much, and I'm even considering going back to Facebook (the shock! the horror!).

I'm happy to be here - I have a voracious appetite for the city, but am slow on my heels to explore it. Bit(e) by bit(e), I suppose.

Tonight I'll read "Empty Handed" at a poetry slam, or so is the plan, carrying Cairo in to Mumbai. Let's see how it is taken.