I hid myself within my flower

I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me–
Almost a loneliness.

I hid myself within my flower a poem by Emily Dickinson

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.*

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say."*

A young woman's life can be divided into two stages; her life before and her life after she has read 'A Room of One's Own'. More so if she has vague illusions about being a writer. Also if she doesn't mind being branded a highbrow (which is just another word for uncool) by 21st Century society, where Sex and the City shows how far we have come as women. And free speech is the most prized possession of those who have nothing to say. Those who are afraid to speak their mind.

In a letter to her friend G. Lowes Dickinson, Virginia Woolf explained the reasons for 'A Room of One's Own': ''I wanted to encourage the young women - they seem to get fearfully depressed.''** That was 1929. It still works in 2011.

70 years ago on this day Virginia Woolf took her own life. She lives not just in her books but in our minds.

PS I always have one of her books or essays on my bedside table. For some it is P. G. Wodehouse for others, Virginia Woolf. That's the way it is. I often walked the streets of London waiting to come upon a scene from Street Haunting. Sometimes when I am alone I read some random paragraph wishing I was accompanied by Tom Waits. Or Patti Smith. Often when life seems disgusting I am rescued by the beauty of flowers, the antics of birds, or a perfectly constructed sentence by Virginia Woolf. Not necessarily in that order. I don't keep a picture of hers. Roddy Doyle's rule number one (from ten rules of writing) works well: "Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide". And in over two years I have mentioned her only five times. This being the sixth.
These are random facts. Somewhat interesting. But is it the truth? If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.*

* from A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.
**from an introduction to A Room of One's Own by Mary Gordon.

Chidiya

The house sparrow is the first bird that every child encounters. In India the special relationship that we share with house sparrows is reflected in the Hindi name for the bird- chidiya*, which is also the Hindi word for bird.
20th March is now celebrated as the World House Sparrow Day because house sparrow numbers are declining across the globe. As I watched the sparrows become comfortable in the few square feet that was the balcony of our home in Bombay it seemed unthinkable to imagine a time when no sparrows will visit our houses. What a sad world that would be.

*the other Hindi name for house sparrows is gauraiya.

What you choose to see is what you get

Illusion is the first of all pleasures - Voltaire

If you live in the “first world”, drive around in a SUV, shop in the malls and try your best to be as Roman (or American or British) as the average Roman then naturally when you go back home (to India) you’ll be amazed. Amazed by the full time servant or as the politically correct will say “help”* (24x7xnearly 365 days a years for peanuts compared to what you’d pay in the other world for someone who comes maybe twice a month), who probably is a migrant from some remote corner that you can’t even spell the name of, let alone point out on a map. Amazed by the “fresh” fruits and vegetables (lets not mention the 67 banned pesticides being freely used in India) available round the corner or coming straight to your house via the sabziwallah, who probably is also a migrant from some place where they took his land and livelihood so that you can get electricity for your air conditioners. But you have to, no need to, be amazed.

Amazed by how along with all these great things you can continue to drive a SUV, shop in malls, send your kids to “International” schools and when it gets too much hop onto a flight and go away for a few days to where you came back home from– that illusionary place that you are trying to recreate, even better. Though right now you can’t see it.

But you know what you are actually doing? Simply perpetuating clichés– tired and well-worn ones. Spitting on and polishing a myth, a pathetic illusion. Kipling in 1889 put an end to such clichés (and cliché makers) forever:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet;
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!**

So be strong for a change. Try to live without a car in the ‘first world’ or without domestic workers in India. I guarantee you’ll never pen another clichéd image of the West or the East; you’ll renounce clichés forever. Chances are that the insights and pleasures you get will be worth savoring (even worth sharing). Though at the moment they might seem improbable, and somewhat illusionary.

* Start calling them domestic workers, for only when you will acknowledge that they are doing the work that you are incapable of doing yourself, will you truly appreciate their help. Otherwise they are nothing more than overworked, underpaid slaves.

** The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling

A rainy day

My tree

My bare branched tree speaks in silence
forlorn and longingly–
it is not another spring that it seeks
but a mild breeze–
to sway its unburdened arms
in abandonment–
simplicity– is free.

Generation next part 1

The first in what will be a series of posts on the young ones of birds that I have photographed at some point in time. With a life span which is a fraction of time that humans and trees spend on this planet, I suppose, the little blue tit on the feeder mimicking another from a generation ago must have paused to think:
Behind Me — dips Eternity —
Before Me — Immortality —
Myself — the Term between —*
*Behind Me – dips Eternity – by Emily Dickinson

Why we don’t talk much anymore

Did you know that I am inspired by the trees? It broke my heart to leave London not because of the birds, as some believed, but because of the trees. In fact, while waiting to get onto the flight, trees were the first things I wrote about and drew in my diary. If ever they ask me what inspires me the most, I will probably answers trees. Also, I love the smell of mint; it's calming and invigorating. And that’s the only reason why I always drink mint tea whenever we meet. Now you know.

I don’t think college was the best time of my life. It was good while it lasted, but frankly I was glad when it was over. The "golden days" can carry the conversation only this far. Yes, there were friendships and some such, but the status you (by you I mean the generic “you” as used by horoscope writers) and every other tween and teen has posted, sums it up succinctly- forget the people in your past there is a reason they didn't make it to your future. Which brings me to a minor point, do you even believe in what you claim to believe in?

Now we are on facebook. And its friendship in safe mode where “LOL” is considered an appropriate response. And everything else is categorized as “nice”. But then “what is Facebook Friendship, after all, but the unending quest for People Like Me, people who like all of My Favorite Things—a monument to mutually enabling narcissism, disguised as a Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name?)'* However, lets move on from here, in part because I am only writing this as I need to get stuff out of the way before I can get back to things that really matter like a latte and Leonard Cohen. And also in part because there is nothing I can say about facebook that hasn’t already been said.

And that brings us to the question: why we don’t talk much anymore? Because there’s nothing to say that I hasn't already been said before.

*You can read more about ironic appreciation- “liking things,” rather than liking things, haters, lifebox, and other such stuff here.

Of other snows, other continents

A plastic bag hovers behind a garbage truck passing by. A futile attempt that is doomed to end in defeat by the roadside. The snow of yesterday garnishes the sidewalk and the hills beyond. The orange tabby springs from nowhere leaving scars on the pavement. The only birds signing are the crows on the prowl.

Photographs in folders dated and numbered wait to be opened. A year in the life gone by must be browsed through again. In the meantime disheveled thoughts scatter ideas, half-baked and ill-formed. The smoke cloud from the neighbour’s backyard hangs above the conifers undecidedly then moves to the skyscrapers. The person on the 34th floor looks out of the window and watches a fluffy white rabbit scamper by.

The church bells are muffled as it starts to snow again. The sea gull catches a snowflake and takes it past the sugar maples, leafless and forlorn. The cows on the windowsill watch the “herb garden in a pot” in astonishment. The fragrance of spearmint mixes with oregano mocking the whiteness outside. The blue tit carved in wood is pensive contemplating other snows, in other continents. And perhaps will say,
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. *

And that brings the mind back to the year gone by. Perhaps one would call it the worst year yet. Or perhaps one would say it was an experiment that went wrong. At least now it is known that this will
not work. But really it wasn’t a disaster?

*One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

In time of roses

  in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me
 
in time of daffodils a poem by e.e. cummings 

What kind of bird would I choose to be

He asked me       if I had a choice

what kind of bird

would I choose to be.

I know what he thought I’d say

since he tried to        end

my sentences half the time

anyway. Something exotic

he thought. He thought

maybe macaw.

That would fit

all loudmouthed

and primary colored

he would think.

(He thinks too much

I always thought.)

But really       at heart

I’m more

don’t laugh now

     an L B J

          little brown job

except               except

I’m not the

flit        from

branch

to        branch        type

such a waste

of energy all that

wing flap

and scritch scritch scratch.

Really now

can you see me

seed pod clamped

between my beak

like some landowner,

Havana cigar

clenched

between his teeth?

No         I think         not

I think

green heron.

You ask why?

Personality

mainly.

That hunched look

wings tucked to neck

waiting        waiting

in the sun

on a wide slab of rock

alongside a slow river

like some old man

up from a bad night’s dream

where he’s seen his coffin

and you say to him

Have a nice day

and he says        Make me.

Oh          you want looks

I’ll give you

looks:

long olive green feathers

a trace of

iridescence

I could stand

going out       iridescent

chestnut sides and head

a black crown

yes        a crown

something regal

to flash when you get

too close

dark bill         bright

yellow legs

and that creamy streak

down my throat and pecs

good

        not great

but good         pecs

just enough for a quick

hop to the next.

The best part

no sexual dimorphism

male         female

both alike

endless possibilities.

Diana García, “On the First Day She Made Birds” from When Living Was a Labor Camp.

Can your bird sing?

All is well with the world 
When the day begins with the zeet zeet bird 
Singing outside the window. 
A tune without the words
Harbinger of hope– that tiny thing with feathers.

Where ever you maybe,
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.*

*Chinese proverb.

The Robin is the One

The Robin is the One
That interrupt the Morn
With hurried – few – express Reports
When March is scarcely on –

The Robin is the One
That overflow the Noon
With her cherubic quantity–
An April but begun –

The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submit that Home – and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best
(The Robin is the One by Emily Dickinson)

Charlbury

Who lives in Charlbury one wonders. The train is stalled somewhere between Oxford and some-place-in-Cotswold. The train manager makes the solemn announcement. The one that ends with apologies. Outside the carriage window stretches the polite landscape– the rolling hills, fields ripening green and gold, honey coloured houses with grey roofs, blue sky with puffed up white clouds, some horses, more than some sheep and that tree maybe single or sometimes maybe in pairs but always large and magnificent.

So, where are we? Glancing at the name of the station as the train came to an unceremonious halt the eye had caught the words Charlbury. This is Charlbury one says. Who lives in Charlbury? What kind of people? What are their lives like? And the mind wades across Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Far from the Madding Crowd. It takes in Emma’s Highbury and even the gentle ladies of Cranford. But a small voice says that was then, this is 2010. And then another voice says but back home when a name like Devli or Peepli comes up (when one is inside a train or zipping by in a car towards Delhi or Bombay) one says, “My Godness! Look at it. It’s like some place out of a novel by Premchand!” And everyone nods sagely for that is that. These few words clearly bring forth not just the life and struggles of the people but even the worry lines on their foreheads. And the crinkle in the eyes that one gets by looking often towards the sky– in hope and in despair. One can even call them by their names– Anandi, Budhia, Ramprasad, Hori, Dhanpat, Bholi. Nothing has changed. Neither the physical setting, nor the people, neither the struggle of their day to day life. One almost blurts out what year is it?

But here in Charlbury- who lives?

I see sunbirds

Work in progress

As I sit working on my last farewell ride a voice from nowhere comes up and says,

You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.
There are only middles.*

*In The Home Stretch by Robert Frost

Winter bird

The winter bird is contemplative.
Unlike the bird of spring,
or even the bird of autumn
it is much less inclined to sing.

In winter there’s isn’t enough daytime to spare,
but all the time in the day to reflect. Winter is a time to prepare

For the ecstasies of spring
The headiness of summer, the enchanting rain
The mellow pleasures of autumn
Till winter comes visiting again.

And the winter bird sits down to comprehend:
Does a circle have a beginning? Is the beginning also the end?

Don't leave your room

Switch off the cell phone, turn off the television, unplug the radio, shut down the computer, pack away your books and simply wait. How many minutes did you last? How many minutes could you spend alone in your own company? Is it true that we crave social contact? Is it really necessity that keeps us ‘connected’? Incessantly seeking the company of another human being to reinforce the fact that we aren’t all alone.

Or, does this need for constantly being bombarded by words, images, and sounds reflect something else? Thoreau said, “I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.”

In an age when even misanthropes become social media addicts, have we all become comfortable moving with the herd? Is it the end of solitude?

Or, may we try something different.

You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait,
be quiet, still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked,
it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
--Franz Kafka, Senses