dropped into my life

with whiskey-blood and a mouth full of smoke.

my feet forgot the pull of gravity

for months afterward.

I should have paid more attention to what the storm was singing.

the happiest I have ever been

is struggling not to fall asleep on strange living room floors,

on make-shift beds,

beside lights strung in bottles-

losing track
of which of these limbs belong to me.

-For N who complains that I only write depressing things about him.
(And spectacularly misses the point. And is too much of an editor to love free-verse or cummings.
And is willing to admit his mistakes, and is the best friend I could have asked for.)

8-9-2013

To the best person I have ever known,

I could not see you. The consequences of choosing to leave for further shores are many, and so deep, that I could not possibly have foreseen them when I left at a naive, chirpy seventeen. So I did not see you. And the last memory I have of you is not hooked up to the dozen tubes and one half of your already barely-there frame. The last memory I have of you is of you holding my hands in yours and asking me “Kobe ashbi?”. I glibly assured you I’d be back in seven months. I’d be graduating. “Ei baar toh khoob kam shomoy, Didibhai”. In my mind seven months was nothing. Barely seven days later, you were in the hospital with poison in your blood. I wish, I wish- I wish I’d lingered then. ‘I wish’s are so useless aren’t they? So let us not speak of this now.

I wish I believed in heaven. The conventional happy-place. I really, really do, because I want to believe that you’re in the best place you could be, getting all the things you deserve, in peace, in comfort and in happiness. Now more than ever, I wish I believed in heaven- because then I could see you again. Right now, the news hasn’t registered really- and it keeps hitting me in fits and starts that next year when I return, your old familiar face, and gentle hands and constant anxiety won’t be on the bed underneath a lazy fan to greet me. It is unreal. And painful.

But let’s not speak of that. Going by what I believe, you’re bigger than your body now and you are energy, the universe(!) again- and what could be more wonderful than that? We are the only ones deprived in this situation, and you are not suffering- which is fine with me.

I don’t know if I can honestly believe in heaven. But I would really like to believe that there is a special place where souls like you go, where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

You cannot give anymore, and perhaps that is for the best. I hope that you are being taken care of for a change. I hope that you feel strong, and free, and are finally, finally rid of chinta.

I love you and I will miss you. I will miss you next summer, and I will miss you this winter. I will miss you when I’m living in India, and I will miss you when I get my PhD. I will miss you when I stay out late and when I come home before seven. I will miss you when I get married and when I have children and when I eat, and when I sleep and when I wake. I will miss you.

I am happy that you are at peace now. Ma told me that after it all- of course you spared them from having to take a painful decision- you looked peaceful. Like Didibhai.

I am grateful that I am your granddaughter, grateful that I know that in a crazy, bad world, there is reason to hope. I know that goodness lives, and I will have faith, because I have been privileged to see it in front of me for nearly twenty two years- as has everyone who has ever known you.

Thank you for everything. 

Love,

Kachu.

When I think about my childhood, there is a lot of summer-afternoons-spent-reading-on-the-big-flat-green-stool-that-used- to-stand-by-the-tiny-balcony-by-the-kitchen-upstairs-in-my-mama-bari that stands out. There is a lot of running around on the roof- back when there was one big roof where the pigeons would come to roost and I would feed them leftover bhaath- white, soft, fluffy rice- and I would dance and show Pishimoni bharatnatyam, and then we'd run up to the second roof to smell the rose garden and the adults would talk and I wouldn't know, wouldn't care what they spoke of- only know it was grown-up-language- like the roses, which the adults appreciated more. I was only a kid. I was happy to be a kid, more interested in clambering up the guava tree, messing around with the brown muck of the plants that grew chillies and tomatoes and if you crushed a leaf from the lime tree in between your palms and rubbed the bits together, you'd have a wonderful citrusy smell about you for a while. Inevitably in these memories is my Didibhai, making chaa for people, with her hard-gentle hands, her standing at the downstairs verandah waving us goodbye, for all eternity Didibhai at the downstairs verandah waving us goodbye. When I grew older I would put my head on her lap, despite the giant lump of hernia she carried with her. I would find a tiny spot of knee and shove a bit of my head on it, lazing on the sofa, reading, listening to the buzz of the adults. So I was sixteen- still a kid to be sure.

It doesn't seem real. Writing is no relief but I must seek refuge in it because what else is there. So come run on sentences, because it seems like this is reality whether I write it or not. There is no question of makings things real. I am helpless and I just want there to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I want it to be summer again, and I want to be putting my head on faded soft cotton, that would be offered to me to blow my nose if I so wished. I want to be holding wrinkled hands. I don't understand this day, this time. This needs to un-happen. Else, it needs to finish happening and go on to next summer when I can go laze on a bed between two old people whom I lived with as a lost, skinny nine year old. I remember being told that I spin like a kite in my sleep and choking with laughter at Hajabarala. I remember the disgustingly huge cockroaches and kind eyes laughing at me- Kichhu hobey na. I remember tetul'er chutney and korom-chaa'r tok and aam'er tok. This is not the way things are. I want to go back to a sleepy nine where I watch Chattaan despite school tomorrow. I want to be fed yellow rice balls in tiny glass bowls by a veiny hand that cares.

I want to be able to breathe, secure in the knowledge that things are okay. Please.

Tumi bolechile tumi ashbei, tumi ashbei, tumi ashbei
joto deri hok.
Ekhaane akashe aagun legeche dur pahare'r maajhe

In times when I am most upset and grief stricken, I find that I do not know what to ask for. I don't know what to pray for. I resort to pleasepleaseplease.

Universe, be kind. Please.

So there could be worse things than saddrinking and laughing over Bollywood tumblrs while roommates make me pasta and hot sauce. Walked an hour in the heat and came home sweaty, with nose scrunched up, wanting to cry like an ugly monkey. Look into the mirror,see that contrary to all expectations, I look an attractive woman after all. Two ciders down, pleasantly buzzed, nodding head to punk rock. Somewhere a heart is ticking, and I am not in it. Ah well.
So here's the thing: you can only push someone away for so long until you succeed.
Here's another thing: dates are important to me. Birthdays, anniversaries, the works. They're basically saying: Hey, I'm so glad you were born/ we met / this happened/ we fucked /whatever. You may be a weird motherfucker, but my life is richer because you're my weird motherfucker.
Ah well.
Everything is an excuse for art. All is balls.

The crackle at the other end of the line
told me that he was still there,
despite the dead silence.
The click at the back of his teeth,
and the sudden sharp uncontrolled intake of breath,
Impatient at the rising pitch of my voice,
wavering perilously close to tears.
Tremulous and shaky,
for the third phone call this month.
I am stricken by the irritation in his voice,
and struggle to make amends.
I apologize for being irritable,
for being a bore, for being predictable
and for the lack of sparkle in our conversation.
I dredge out the same dull things each time.
The worry in my thoughts
translate to a crease in between my eyebrows,
turning into a ceaseless litany of woe on the phone.
I can imagine the mouse
hovering over a link in red
and the impatience perched at the corner of his absent smile.
I hang up feeling stupid.
That evening sitting with work,
with cats lolling on the floor,
and stray roommates behind closed doors,
I remember my grandmother,
and us children rolling our eyes, every time her voice would start to rise
about my dead grandfather,
about money, and the servants.
The crack was coming, we knew it
because it came so often.
Impatience, and irritation.
'I love her, but why can't she just keep her misery to herself?'
I did not think those thoughts,
I did not vocalize them,
not even to myself.
Am I a bad person,
I wonder.
Don't think so much,
a friend told me over the phone.
Isn't it exhausting,
she asked, bewildered, frustrated.
Yes, I said.
But not giving shape to the thought in your head,
doesn't un-make it.
But I am a fool,
who thinks too much, and sleeps too little, and gets confused,
and cries on the phone.
Offering apologies, swallowing the knot in my stomach.
So I keep my feelings to myself,
and try to take up littler space.
I will not intrude in your world.
I will back away one half footfall at a time,
and you will not hear me leave.
You will not care.
And I will make a mental note to myself,
to be kinder to my grandmother
when she tries not to cry.

Grumble. Skip reading.

UFF this is like fake pre exam time. can i please go somewhere else, be someone else. i'm sick of umreeka. want to go live somewhere in india where i know lots of people but will see no one because i'll be sitting, no lying down on a green bedcover in an ac room with green curtains, reading, reading, reading.

i just described the master bedroom in park'er baari. dhyat.

i am just sick of being told what to do, and sick of thinking so much about it all the time. wouldn't it be nice if i could just know what i'm doing next year and be happy with it, no unexpected surprises, thank you very much.

i'm sick of being politically correct and understanding, sick of being a hard worker, sick of a neverending to-do list, sick of people and their egos. i'm sick of having a house without a fan, and a blocked nose. i want to be in kerala with my family, ten years old, taking pictures on a dinky toy camera. i also want to be a goat, but a pet goat, not one that is being slaughtered to make delicious mutton curry- "kheye nao, shiggir, rontoo"

DHYATT.

i don't want to have feelings ever again. NO MORE EMOTIONS, THANK YOU. ALSO NO MORE CATSICK ON THE STAIRS WHEN I WAKE UP. also no more people saying things like 'lovely femmeness'. also i cannot listen to music anymore. 

the baba (not the father, the sattam) emailed me and told me not to do this thing with my eyebrows where i look like a nervous, sad puppy, when i give my talk. i was trying to figure out what the devil he meant, while doing it, such is life etcetera. yesterday i wore a dress from the seventh grade that i used to wear a tank top under, only i didn't yesterday because i'm bigger? but my boobs were on display, and i kept alternating between 'WORLD HERE ARE MY BOOBS' and 'ughh i wish i had a bib because they are DISTRACTING'.

i woke up from uneasy sleep where i'd buzzed off all my hair and was passing as a boy with some strange name like Rat. also crazy amounts of police sirens outside my window for a longtime, and in my sleep i thought they were coming after me 'cuz i hadn't finished my presentation. 

dhurr. i am sick of glitter, sick of being politically correct, and having to think about whether i'm being 'oppressive' every time i open my mouth.

all i want is to be on a footpath somewhere, drinking thums up and waiting for an auto.

okay? okay.

i have probably written too many things i shouldn't have, but fuck that. in other news, i showed ma something fictional and now she's paranoid that i'm sleeping with my boss (I'M NOT. I'M NOT, UFF RUBBISH).

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