Going down

He gave way to my hand 

by removing his mouth and finger

Like a sacred procession had arrived 

he had to follow the lead of 

Subway

I see people 

Through their reflections 

In the moving train 

Saturday Plans

I asked my friend,

“yo, you wanna see Improv 

on Saturday?” and prefaced, 

“It might be wonderful, or 

not wonderful at all.”

"That would be wonderful

in its own way", he said. 

Thanksgiving

Being on the road to Blacksburg, Virginia from D.C, the fields and the beautiful scenery

reminded me of what I drew as a kid, along with others in my art class. Even though I’ve lived in

the farms and cropland of my ancestors or was simply aware of it in my unconscious memory

without deliberate reminders of its existence with frequent visits, but I realize the images I drew

were nothing to what I saw or what I knew what a field looked like. The description of the life

from anecdotes of my mother as a young student taking care of the cattle after school, or my

paternal grandfather as a farmer and landlord didn't help either.

The inanimate animals spotted as black markers on the land, the haystacks or the houses with

pointed roofs and low-rise mountains in the backdrop, with a stream of water running up and

under the land was never Punjab. Nor were the vast blue skies with pristine cotton clouds

suspended from them.

"It's time to wake up", she said as my eyes opened to be greeted by an offering of chocolate

which I smilingly accepted. As my tongue was still trying to decipher the flavor, while my eyes

traced a few letters on the otherwise torn down packaging and completed the word, 'Ghirardelli'.

But she answered my unasked question lingering in my mind and tongue as she pointed her

finger to "mango" and underlined it with a stroke of her nail. "I was wondering", I said and she

put it away.

"These have your name on it", she remarked as she handed me the grapes. I am not sure if I

shared my fondness for grapes with her earlier on this 5.25-ˇhour journey. Anyway, she is a

retired Spanish professor of 40 years at Virginia Tech. Having been born and brought up in

Central America, she spoke both Spanish and English as a kid. The language was a means to

learn new things and read about experiences of different people, she mentioned. Her artist

husband from Barcelona was 14 years older than her and could barely speak English. So,

they'd go back to Spain every summer for she felt the need for him to spend time there.

She was visiting her niece in DC for Thanksgiving where her brother and his wife also joined.

Towards the end of the journey, and as we neared our stop, she took out her little notebook and

asked my name. I spelled it for her and she double checked as she handed over her card with

her number written on the backside. "This is my landline and I don't use my cell phone often,

unless I'm on the road, in which case I don't answer. If you need anything, a ride, or a home cooked meal, call me.”

Constructing

Construction sites are filled with an amalgamation of activities and a plethora of people, especially if you are in South Asia. The residential renovation site in South City (Ludhiana, India) undergoes gestation with men and women laboriously working as their children frolic around amidst the sound of hammering and chiseling metal, sanding wood, smoothening walls, drilling concrete and cutting stone. These sounds are garnished by that of the anklets as this woman walks carrying  a stack of bricks on her head and as another one bathes three of her naked boys in the front lawn with a hose.

These workers will soon vanish into thin air as the owners  mark their arrival with a housewarming celebration. The guests would catwalk up and down the massive stairs, supporting their hands on the handrails they carved out of a wooden block to sanded and smoothed perfection.

Airport Arrivals

As the plane became afloat and we hovered over the NY skyline, the buildings I could name increased gradually. From the Empire State and the Chrysler Building to the One World Trade Center starkly standing out guided me to find the hotel opposite of which I stayed on my last NYC trip. To then others, the new Rafael Vinoly’s 432 Park Avenue: tallest residential tower and was reminded of its swinging, its architect was talking about. To, the Bjarke Ingel’s Via 57 West and its tapering curvature and the distinct tip as the plane looped to reveal the magnificent Central Park and the water bodies it hosts, relative to which I assumed the location of Guggenheim and the MET. I then recalled my studio professor’s ‘natural habitat’ I was passing by aerially and how she knows its every nook and corner by the back of her hand as she’d swift through the streets and subways casually.

We flew by and I passed into a pleasant slumber reminiscing the view and woke up to a Jain Vegetarian meal I had preferred. It was cool to hear from my neighbor about his daughter’s research. “Rats are born without eyesight and they gain it after 6(?) days. So, she’s going to research and study their eye by cutting through the cornea. Thus, conduct DNA sequencing. Perhaps they are able to replicate the same in humans for blind people.” He was a ‘gold medalist from Andhra University’ working with the SBI. He had lived in NY for five years in his early years for work with the same bank. Because of being brought up in Bombay and Delhi didn’t feel out of place in NY.

He got off at Mumbai while I was to continue the trip to Delhi. The two-hour layover extended and the flight delayed by an hour and forty minutes. This prompted me to grab a Starbucks Frap. Poor decision that is making me unnecessarily shake after the 14-hour flight as I write, wait to board, and see the Bombay slums in the far-flung and some similar, repetitive, tall apartment complexes and other scattered low-rise structures. Some people continue to stare, scroll through their phones, others frequently smile while looking at them. There is an old gentleman with parted grey hair sitting with curious eyes and his wife, I assume, lying on the bench listlessly next to him. Another middle-aged one is engrossed in the newspaper he’s holding. The one sitting right opposite to me pendulums between wakefulness and sleep while another one talks on the phone in the vernacular as the instrumental music hums. Larger-than-life, flower-shaped lamps opened in varying degrees hang like some guilty albatross from the airport's neck.  

Another start at pausing, reflecting and chronicling

I'll be publishing more frequently and regularly on another blog, Re-envisioning This would be relating more to the idea of entrepreneurship, especially as the year progresses, coupled with my day to day activities and curriculum surrounding it. Even though there is a sense of context required about the whole initiative, but it'll be my sincere effort to make it understandable to an outsider per se. I'm sharing my very first post here as well. 

The one and half year spent at Virginia Tech since August 2015 and the experiences elsewhere by virtue of it has led to a tremendous learning experience.

Weather it was through the professors and faculty, or activities in class or experiences outside of it. The friendly mentors and the inspiring friends, and the strangers who became acquaintances. The long walks and short trips, the wishes and thoughts that manifested in the most extraordinarily simple ways.  Authenticity of some fellow members of the staff or entrepreneurs who's stories I resonated with. Also, the beautiful surroundings and some wonderful design.

I was just getting my feet wet, but found that the water was warm, inviting and fostering. So, here's to another journey of pausing, reflecting and chronicling as I learn to swim through the semester and another year here.

Honour

_{You still carry with you the ethos}

_{of your bringing up, the way you
pronounce 'ivy' leagues reversely,
and other words and phrases
as you casually weave conversations
which sometimes go as long as my studio
lab of four hours, quite conveniently and
timelessly as you chronicle your
awaiting sleepless nights of work
amidst the passion that lingers behind
the dark stories you narrate
whimsically, and my inhabiting in peculiar
network areas that take us back
in time to the fields of our farmer ancestors,
And maybe thus, scrutinizing the food that
goes down our oesophagus or the alcohol that
the mouth needs to first appreciate
fully before it's let go,
To the individual yet shared instance
of full moon night contemplations;
Walks that extend beyond
the limbs or the mind
dissecting the social constructs
unabashedly, reveling in the natural cosmos
unapologetically, and the silence
which is omnipresently absent,
From my misadventure in the drill field
you mock at, and other instances,
minding everything, and nothing at all,
and keeping at bay the
dualities that plague and
the love that prevails?}

Sentiments in Studio

Our seats in the studio were shuffled the very first day of the second semester. Now I sit pretty much opposite to where I used to: the corner desk near the window. A desk I'd chosen after a lot of considerations. First would be its closeness to the window which provided adequate light and a view of the Appalachians in the background. It was always nice to simply gaze out of the window, seeking inspiration sometimes, and differing the current work, at others. It had a closeness to the now called, the big black common table. And also a lack of a neighbor by virtue of being in the corner. 

Now, I'm in the row from where our studio begins. The high rise desks and stools separate the freshman from the lower desks and chairs of the upperclassmen. Persons with distinct odors and walking styles pass behind me constantly. Some with a distinct fragrance, others the smell of coffee; with passive walking style or the thud of the heels. 

I wonder if my change in location has influenced the work I now produce. Does geography have such powers? Well, in that case, I wouldn't have travelled 12040km to study here if it did not. In any case, I should get back to making a study of the Diebenkorn's 'Ocean Park' series' painting we've been assigned to. It is a highly abstract work influenced by the view form his studio window in Santa Monica. Maybe this time, my view of the people will drive my work, literally and figuratively.

I love when people hug

As they try to become one.

Their every futile attempt

never deters them 

For the very next one.

A Eulogy: Vivek Pandher

Eulogy, a fine word, an equal mix of vowels and consonants that somehow used to fascinate me when I learned it. Or even obituary for that matter. How the tongue adjusts itself precisely for its enunciation. But, my brothers demise was the last thing I had envisaged that would give me an opportunity to write one.

The first time when I talked to the doctor from Washington about his condition, 'He may not survive. He may die', he said.  I swallowed, unaware as to how to respond, my dad stepped in and brought me to the present sensing my horrid silence with gaping eyes while my organs seemed to sink and swirl into a deep black hole of the body,  'Its okay, there's nothing we can do about it. Say thank you.' I did the same and cut the call.

Vivek was a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, as an elder bother, I have memories of him scaring me off after we'd finish watching horror shows as kids, to introducing me to varied genres in music, to making me look forward to new and interesting lessons in school, to being an absolute rock in the past year and helping me figure things out and even going out of his way to do them for me like finding the right universities and filling the college apps for instance. He weaved together my present and past with his insightful knowledge and paved the way for the future. Life with him has come a full circle.

(Vivek, you're gone and so is my taken for grantedness for life, people and experiences. You've recently introduced me to what it is to have and experience a network of family support system coupled with the warmest hugs and acquainted an array of your people, the ones you knew so well and the others who knew you, and mostly the love whose forms were so tangible. I'm grateful to you, them and the consequent conglomerate.)

From his friends and associates I'd hear stories of his charismatic self and demeanor. He took it upon himself to lead the life he intended and contribute in every degree to enhance the lives of those around him. A sense of casual fashion was one of his recent acquisitions I noticed with incorporation of some elements of Punjabi heritage.

What we as siblings had distinguished for ourselves is how everything exists in language. And that representation of feelings happens as a consequence of language and not the other way round. So let us, through the gift of language we humans share, create an empowering context of living for ourselves and our people at this time.

When I tied a heart shaped bracelet on his wrist that the BC organ donation team gave me, I realised, and shared later with mom, that if we have to continue living, we have to live as beautifully as he did. Be courageous to make the choices we have always wanted to, be expressive of the love we have for people, loved ones or absolute strangers, nature and life in general. And above all, live it with zeal, because that's how its supposed to be lived.

Robin Williams from the Dead Poets Society would be smiling from his grave, for I know, that this boy had always seized the day and made his life extraordinary. He was a photographer, an aspiring filmmaker, a musician, an engineer with an inclination towards recognition of Punjabi poetry along with a penchant for writing postcards and above all, an amazing human being with an infectious smile and a solid strength of the mind and words. And most importantly, he lived life his way, fully and without regrets and entirely in a little short than twenty three years.

He wrote below one of Instagram pictures, and I quote, 'I can bet I'm in one percent of the most happiest people in the world with the best quality of life. Have coolest friends, mentors and people around. And am grateful to everyone for all the love.' Well, his flair for grammar isn't comparable to the flair with which he lived his life.But I'm sure that's excusable, right?

In the end, to those cuffed with questions on the futility of life, "Whitman answers, 'That you're here, that life  exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.' That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute  verse. What will your verse be?"

Unrequited love

You asked me, 'you're fine, na?'
Not once
But twice, to hear the same reply
'Ya ya'.
Did you decipher the hollowness
Behind the make belief emotions
Of happiness I tried to project on the day
I was born nineteen years ago?
Not the people I call ‘best friends’ found
The slightest trace of it
Or their acute awareness of my
Indifference to celebratory days
Didn’t make much of a difference.

I’d rather be in the ignorance of it
Than get to know the soulfulness
Of the question and equate it
To the level I was feeling that night.

Nevertheless I see your silhouettes
In different people I come across
Or the characters from your favourite sitcoms
And the content of the books you read
Which help me getting a glimpse onto what runs
Under those folds of your gyri and sulci
And buildings I see which remind
Me of the endeavours you behold
And sometimes, the people in them
To whom I sheepishly smile
And initiate happy conversations
As if I’m talking to
A part of you the universe
Conspired for me.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe
You silently accuse me
Of unrequited love and I don't
Blame you for that.
For, my paradigm of love doesn't
Require constant validation and knowhow
Of each other's affairs
Of mind and body
But the comfort of assurance
Of their keen interests in them.

Conundrum

No wonder

I can't write

Happy stories,

I exhaust my

Happiness in its

Physical expression

That words no more

Make sense

When I sit down

To write.

Blanket

So I was sitting and plucking your lint

And realised, you’re the one who has seen the real me

Even then wrapped me up in your embrace night after night;

You’ve experienced my hand go under my pants

And have been a mute spectator to come

And softened the rotten smell of my blood

Every month with your layered thickness;

You’ve been seldom sprinkled with tears and

Accusatory notes by the night

And milk by the morning, (owing to the unaccountable handling

Of my cereal bowl) also, gratitude spells.

You’ve saved me from the outside world (read: people)

As I bundled up in your arms, clothed or naked

Without moral policing.

Although I’ve unabashedly expressed my disdain

For your crimson velvet fabric and electric print

Which also acted as an insulator for the overheated laptop,

But sought your aid for hibernation.

You’ve seen me envision and dreamt

Along with me with polarising feelings;

And above all, I see you lying listlessly

For I don’t bother to fold you every day

For I know I’ll need you too soon

To pack away would be a waste of time.

Dissent

I thought I’d never date a lawyer

For our conversations would

Turn to battlegrounds, swinging swords

Of words to incite each other

For the sole motive of victory

Until I realised that dissent isn’t

Anti person and conflicting ideas and paradigms

Help me experience two parallel worlds

Simultaneously coupled with the pleasure

Of engulfing mind fucks

A lot of literature with a little of this and that: JLF ‘15

My anticipation of three years for the prestigious Jaipur Literature Festival owing to the rigorous and uncompromising academia I was part of, culminated this year with a plan, over a dinner with family friends, one of the most memorable, if I may add.

So, the journey with the self proclaimed literati, mostly of my age group comprised of conversations from homosexuality, God, culture and casteism among others headed by my critic uncle, formed a fraction, majority of which was devoted to music: listening, singing and a combination of both.

The opportunity to listen to an array of authors, journalists, politicians and celebrities and see them casually move about was a humbling experience I cannot fathom to chronicle, but here’s an attempt.

Out of the six back to back sessions at different venues of the Diggi palace, my first day and the festival’s second began with ‘A revolution is brewing- women uninterrupted’ owing to my feministic instincts followed by travel writing where authors read out some hilarious incidents they experienced while in India and others which excruciated their very ‘Indian-ness’; and culminated with the story of Princess, suffragette, and revolutionary:  Sophia Duleep Singh and the challenges Anita Anand faced in deciphering her life and thus being of aid in communicating it.

Getting the hold of things better, subsequent days made more sense to me in ways more than one. ‘Reaching for the Stars’, explored space writing’s incorporation into relatable and gripping stories. Likewise the ‘Selfie’ discussed the art of memoir and diary writing. It was a refreshing conglomerate of the title and the area of discussion. I was in a literature festival after all. Nevertheless, it was equally agonising when Shobha De herself iterated the use of dance in ‘Dance Like a Man: Refiguring Masculinity’ as a metaphor but nowhere in the session did she herself for that matter proceed to discuss it as she proclaimed, with the other three panellists.

Then there were Rajdeep Sardesai’s rather forthright remarks on the ‘Deconstructing Change: The Election That Changed India’ (in context of the Modi wave and the general elections of 2014) and how the one thing that unites India today is aspiration, the nasty role media played under the big power heads blocking out Mr. Kejriwal. I’m sure he has much to say after the recent Delhi polls.

Amidst his forgetfulness, V.S. Naipaul’s session was rather an encouraging call to young writers through his insights like, “I thought if I don’t have faith in myself and my talent that would be the end of me as a person” or just blatant remarks like, "if a writer has to make a living, he has to write a book” in the session aptly titled ‘The writer and The World’ following which I attended, ‘Cities and their Shadows’ introduced by the Red Herring columnist, Indrajit Hazra where discussion gained momentum to define a city as more than just a place made of brick and mortar. But, “a city is people, a city is its stories”, concluded Navtej Sarna whose work focused on Jerusalem. Among the panellists were Yatindra Mishra talking on Ayodhya, Malvika Singh on Delhi and Esther David on Ahmedabad, and all collectively on cities- the great levellers.

Simon Singh talked about mixing of math and science with popular culture (by not necessarily undermining the math or science) through the sitcom The Simpsons. The entertaining and enlightening session, as promised by Anuradha Sengupta in a response to the furore of thronging fans to hear Abdul Kalam in the nearby front lawns, well delivered, marked the end of an engaging day.

From Chetan Bhagat’s commercial cacophony to the irony of writing a biography of Socrates in a session so passionately led by Bettany Hughes and the journey of Narayan Murthy from a confused leftist to a determined capitalist, ending with Ram Jethmalani’s life, years of lawyership, politics, and of course women. The last day covered it all.

Mesmerising sessions, surprisingly heart-warming PDA not narrowed to an age group, and the freedom of company of cordial people and enchanting books coupled with the diversity of individuals, clothing and food marked my days at the fest which was rendered by avant-garde decor, is an experience I very much cherish and reminisce.

Momentary Musings

Our 

hands held

each other in the dark to serve

an assurance

that it was never a wholehearted intention when

the time 

would come to leave and move on

.

Broken promises mended like

Broken bones

Plastered with apologies and reassurances

The memories remained much like

Scars

Never hampering future play

.

Summer left me greasy

with sticking hair.

Tanned.

Only to be rescued by winter.

Embracing securely were my layers of clothes

that I forgot how it felt to be naked.

Confined

Only to be rescued by...

Truth

Don’t search for the answer

Let it have its value

Let it remain a question

Let it bother you every time

Let it sway you from the present

Let it make you ponder

Digging beneath the core

When it was lying at the crust

Let it remain a question

Let it bother you…

Don't worry, I still love you

Are you a virgin birth as well?

Your skin has always been smooth

Or your hypocrisy has rendered your mind

Oblivion of the obvious

Or you think people are too foolish

To realise anything

Or your past hysteria has been too overwhelming

Expecting from a person to forcefully express

Drilling something so hard

It feels evil to even think of it

I’m rolling in the game as well

I’ll keep pretending I know nothing

That’s what you've always dreamt of, no?

Don’t worry, I still love you

Falling Prey

At a time when Gus died in The Fault in our stars, “It was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second worse than the last one.”  It seemed that my obsession with this book had manifested into reality, as subscribed in The Secret when I suddenly saw my father crying, sitting on the bed next to mine. As if the Universe had made us travel six hours so that we could sit in this beautiful hotel room with a balcony facing the hills and the houses it arrested, for this to happen. I mean seriously, Universe? He was soon joined by my mother. I, hovering between the two situations and asking myself which one to concentrate on: Gus, who actually died of cancer at the age of seventeen, or my parents whose cancerous thoughts when put into words led to upsetting both of them. It was awkward. Decisiveness is not what I know myself for. If I should ditch John Green and his book and heed to Paulo Coelho’s advise, my favourite author until then,  “Any crime was not only the sole responsibility of the murderer, but of all those who created conditions in which the crime could occur.” I sat, torn between these two options on the sofa-cum-bed which was in a position where it was neither a sofa and nor a bed, owing to the intricacies involved in its folding, with a nonchalant expression just staring at the sofa, them and my book periodically; making their conversation more awkward? Yes. Humiliating? Maybe, in this stony silence that had engulfed after their session of crying and howling. I didn’t make any move. Just a little, by turning towards them to make them feel I was paying attention to them, but I had been put on mute mode while my thoughts raced with each other. One convincing me that this is the right thing to speak, while the other said, no, speak me. I ended up adhering to none and rather asking myself, should I be crying as well? “No, why should you?” “Of course you should, your parents marriage is at stake.” I sat there with no swollen eyes but plain indifference, which surprisingly was new to me.

Absolute desolation is a truth we choose not to believe till we have the sanity to lie to ourselves stuck with me the moment I had read it and it gave me the courage not to fake my concern to people. People. Yes, all people, transcending the chains of self proclaimed or even ‘natural’ relations. Each passing day seemed to confirm Osho’s predicament that marriage is the worst thing humanity has imposed on itself to go through the cycle of love, betrayal, sorrow and redemption, if you’re lucky. “Marriage is a legal trap meant to reduce two people to one-and-a-half”, Gloria Steinem’s statement I happened to stumble across in a magazine interview that evening whilst the Internet refused to hasten up.

After all monogamy is a myth that has been rammed down peoples throat for too long. It isn’t just a matter of excess hormones or vanity, but, as all the research indicates, a genetic configuration found in almost all animals.

I knew that, for sure, I didn’t have to be its prey. That my life was destined by the stars, I didn’t recognise myself. But, “Without pain, we couldn’t know joy”, the great quote in Gus’s house. One, that I apart from Gus and Hazel found very comforting.