Restless Quill

What the internet gave the Kerala man (apart from porn)[1]-  jobless and PMSy, the mindless facebooking of a bored summer afternoon led me to click the link that would plunge me into a pit of depression and self loathing. Expecting an attempted humorous analysis of the cultural and social impacts of the internet in Kerala, I begin reading the long, fairly normal looking blog post. Matrilineal society, patriarchy, decent and modern said with bunny ears in the air (double quotes, for the layman)……I skim through the first paragraphs, wondering where the part about the internet was.

Enter TV presenter and actress, Ranjini Haridas. A 30-something presenter who wildly successfully anchored a reality talent show for six years on Asianet, a Malayalam TV channel. Haridas is possibly little known outside Kerala. And so is the hate that she inspires¹.

Interest piqued now, I read further, curious about what this blogger had to say about the controversial Malayali anchor I had strained my vocal chords defending in discussions with friends some years ago.

She was a stark contrast to the Malayalee TV presenter that bored the hell out of viewers till then. These women wore a look of innocence, a certain... freshness one associates with the "untouched". Her makeup was traditional with pink (ish) lipstick, and kohl-lined eyes, made up and yet not so much that it would make an impact. Her hair was tucked away in demure braids, or a little bun at the nape of the neck, and imprisoned in jasmine. She didn't use her hands much, and smiled idiotically a lot. She was a vision, a girl-you-gawk-at-in-a-temple vision. Beautiful, efficient and tameable; completely devoid of impact, a threat to none of the men who ogled and aspirational for none of the women these men lived with. If a channel was targeting a younger crowd, you'd find young women dressed in jeans and a perfectly unremarkable top, with requisite hair and make up, and personality that was even more unremarkable than the T shirt. Usually, there was a guy who co-hosted and hogged all air time¹. 

I chuckle at the writer’s candid observation, and note with slight interest its similarity to the comments I often make about such women on TV.

You see, us Malayalee women look down on those who wear make up, although secretly we wished we could carry it off too. We think we are natural beauties and to do anything with a tube of lipstick is to enter slut category. Until a few years ago, we didn't wax our limbs; not because we believe in our feminist right to do what the hell we want with our body hair, but because salons are the dens of the devil¹. 

Okay now she is taking words out of my mouth! I think, as I scroll further, reading things eerily similar to ones I have though, talk about, and made notes to write about. What an observant, witty, honest and well written piece!

THAT BITCH.

Maybe because of my masochist tendencies, and because I will never listen to my uncontainably wise best friend’s advice that anyone better than yourself is to be hated on, and not try to gain inspiration from, I read on. ‘Stop calling it “eve teasing”, you are being molested’; ‘Becoming an asshole starts early’; ‘I CUT OFF MORE THAN MY HAIR’¹…. You gotta be freaking kidding me here! Like the random-slices-of-life domain isn’t already over-populated with (grudgingly) good bloggers blogging their amusing lives away to popularity, she had to take over the little niche I had painfully found for myself? Free style random observations on life with a feministic lens. My tiny, harmless niche. And the bitch had to go ahead and be all awesome at it. Restless Quill¹, damn, even her blogger name is cool.

I want to crawl into a hole and die.

Now in the familiar home zone of wallowing in self loathing and pity, I trace back to find out which facebook “friend” committed the atrocity of sharing this piece of horrible awesomeness. Oh great, another feminist. With her own blog. Don’t these women have nothing better to do?

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[1] http://therestlessquill.blogspot.in/2014/04/what-internet-did-to-kerala-man-apart.html

Crash course

Wake up from a mostly sleepless night to realize I haven’t magically been transported to my room back home. Tiptoe out of room to cry on the phone to my parents or best friend a thousand miles away. Realize time, rush to get dressed, run to cafeteria for breakfast. Locate most isolated table, eat food while practicing how to be invisible. Find symptoms of acute anxiety disorder each time someone tries to make eye/verbal contact. Crawl to class. Drag myself through the day, barely talk unless it was absolutely necessary, run to my room the moment classes end. Alternate time between phone/skype, homework, books, old TV series, and exhausted sleep. Avoid human contact with anyone not virtual and a thousand miles away.

This was not how I had pictured my big adventure would be. Attending UWC had been my dream since the very first time I visited the college website, and told my father with all the awe a fifteen year old could have, “I have found Totto chan’s Tomo….this is where I belong.”  And MUWCI turned out to be everything I had imagined- lively, diverse, passionate, with more opportunities than anyone could grab; it was I who had turned into something I didn’t recognize. When I excitedly stepped out of my home of fifteen years in spite of the frowns, concerns, and questions that tried to stop me, I hadn’t imagined that I would miss it too much to enjoy any of the things about UWC life I had longed for so much. Outside of my comfort zone for the first time,  I had too much to get used to and learn, that getting through each day  was a task…..building a new life in the community I had dreamt of became a thought from the past.  I made through each day with a cross off on my calendar, and a promise from my parents that I could re-evaluate my decision to attend MUWCI  when I’d be home for winter break after the first 3 months.

I don't know when it was that i realized how pathetic I had turned, but like the advice to a lone- heart, I told myself I had to “throw myself out there.” I stopped shrinking away to my corner when my roommates asked me for tea, stopped running away from conversations longer than a minute, awkwardly showed up at social events and made an effort to socialize. And a week before winter break, talking of holiday plans on the roof over tea and popcorn with my roommate, I had a surprising realization - as much as I was looking forward to being home, I was sad to leave. I loved waking up to the Norwegian song that was my roommate’s alarm, spending Friday afternoons making Japanese rice cakes with a friend who missed them, crying over Korean dramas with my Biology lab partner, finding my conversations mixed with Telgu, Bangla, Hebrew, Dutch, Punjabi words. I loved that there was always an amazing story someone had to share, a fascinating idea being discussed, an incredible conversation waiting for me.

With this happy realization, I went home with a light suitcase….for I knew I was coming back. And the next 1 and a half years I spent there, was a crazy, beautiful adventure. Sure, I still had a fair share of nights I spent crying into the pillow, events I skipped to Skype with my parents, and days when I wished I could drop everything and fly home; but every time someone asks me about my two years in UWC, I mean it when I say that I had the time of my life, that it truly changed me, that it was my crash course in maturity.            

Now at the brink of another transplantation, my roots tremble in scared anticipation. Uncertainty chokes Optimism, and the Great Perhaps of the easier alternative pokes Determination. But from the bits of wisdom on yellow post its I gained from the walls of MUWCI, comes to mind one…. “If I am to regret something, I would regret doing it rather than not doing it”. Pounding heart and fluttery intestines, Determination in place….any step worth taking comes with fear.                                                                             

Footsteps

“We’ll see you at home then”, my sister-in-law calls out as she and my brother cycle off into the darkness with wobbly grocery bags. It’s ten-thirty at night, and the moon seems to be continuing his strike, leaving the sky dark for the exception of some grey winter clouds. I re-tie my messy ponytail, and pull the hood of my jacket over my freezing ears for the half an hour walk back home.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture. I’m not wading through anxiety and paranoia. My legs and heart-beat aren’t in a race, and my head doesn’t turn back every five minutes for a reassurance of my safety. Empty lanes don’t have me breaking into cold sweat and quickening my shaky footsteps, rather draw me in to admire their melancholy beauty. Footsteps don’t make me clutch my dupatta and nervously fiddle with the strap of my handbag. The tall shadow of a man falls on me, and I falter for a brief tentative moment before I return his hello with a smile.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture, for it shows a girl out alone at night, and it is bereft of the hue of fear that should mark it.

“Man, I really dread coming back to India…” I feel no shame, guilt or fear of being marked as a snobby rich brat when I say this to a friend back home, as my 2 month visit in Amsterdam draws to an end. The wondrous city, breath-taking sights, delicious food, and limitless opportunities aside, Amsterdam has given me a bigger reason to dread going back from my two month dream vacation- Now I know what it feels to be free. The threshold of darkness doesn’t shut the door anymore, and my “security” isn’t linked to the presence of my brother, tiny father, or practically useless male friends. And as I skip around in my new found independence, I feel strangely light. For the first time in 18 years, I feel what it is to be completely, unapologetically, fearlessly myself, outside the safety of my home. No pounding heart, hurry to get home, obsessive suspicion, or Daddy’s number on speed-dail for safety. I’m free, for the millstones of fear and anxiety and paranoia around my neck have been hacked off and thrown away. I can finally hear myself think,  the footsteps in my head have at last ceased.

So yes, europhelia, oikophobia, imperial admiration or snobbish ‘NRI-ism’, I dread coming back to India. Because it took the streets of this weed-smoking, prostitution-allowing, ever partying city to teach this 18-year old girl from the 100 percent literate, most “female empowered” state of India what liberation feels like.

Insignificant speck of dust

“No matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal[1].”

Sarah Kay’s advice to her future daughter plays in my mind, as the piercingly motionless stare of the 8 year old burns a hole in my chest. It isn’t dust from the playground he is covered in, it is the rock dust from the gold mines of Ghana. He has just come out of a 72 hour long unpaid shift in the gold mine he is enslaved in for life. He is 8 years old, right about the time I had discovered the wondrous world of Roald Dhal and SpongeBob and easy bake ovens. The photo of this little boy was an image from a Ted Talk by Lisa Kristine that I had stumbled upon. The blunt title had caught my eye during my daily morning facebook scrawl- Photos that bear witness to modern slavery. (http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery.html?quote=1828)

More  photos and statistics on the screen drill the hole deeper, and I feel my pounding heart fall hard into it as the photographer tells her story of modern day slavery. 27 million people. Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, India. Children on mountain tops with their arms spread out, hoisting rocks thrice their size strapped on their back. Women forced into the dingy florescent pit of prostitution. Entire families trapped in unpaid labor. Hands dyed red and indigo with the stain of generations of slavery. Human lives wasting away as you and I breathe.

The pain inside me turned into guilt, self-accusation, utter disgust at myself. I think of all the suffering in this world, and how little I do about it. Slavery, poverty, war, disease, pain. I’m stabbed by the reminder of how ignorant, self-absorbed, and tiny, I,- most of us- am. A rather simple dialogue from a haunting movie Thira echoes in my mind- We all have eyes, but we rarely see things that don’t concern us.

The tornado of emotions from distress to agony to self-revulsion settled down in a helpless sense of insignificance. There is more suffering in this world than we could heal. No matter how much I try, my hands will always be too small. Wasn’t I, afterall, a tiny insignificant speck of dust?

“I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside.[2]”  This time Andrea Gibson’s lines from a spoken-word poem is the voice in my head. From the pit inside me rises a little dug out hope. My hands may be too small, but they can still reach out. My voice may be too small, but it call still break glass if I scream loud enough.

The profound wisdom of this 5 year old says it all. This is the insignificant speck of dust screaming out to the universe that I’m significant.

But maybe, that’s the beginning.  Maybe the insatiable pounding of my heart, the hole in my chest is the beginning. The insignificant speck of dust feels, the ISD thinks how it can make the world slightly better, the ISD hope, the ISD believes. Because for every landmine that erupts, for every lost childhood, every wasted life, somewhere a change is fighting its way out. Somewhere a solider and her dog are reunited after the war. A baby is discovering how to smile. A little boy is breaking off his chocolate bar for his friend who doesn't have one. Someone is hugging a stranger who needs it. Someone is crying for a little girl on the streets. Someone is raising a pluck-card against war and hatred. Someone is trying to wipe away suffering. Somewhere, an insignificant speck of dust is screaming she isn't too small to make a difference.

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[1] Sarah Kay. If I should have a daughter.

[2] Andrea Gibson. The Nutritionist. 

Making sense

nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure[1].

“I knew I wanted to write since I could remember.” This line I ascribe my identity to, now burns inside me like an overdue apology I know I should be making. I stare at the computer screen, fingers poised over the familiar white letters of the keyboard, waiting for inspiration to make them tap. I try to ignore the puny word count at the bottom of the screen, reminding me I couldn’t do what once came so easily to me….write.

It didn’t take my pre-teen self much thought to declare writing as my passion in the “What I want to do when I grow up” essays for English class, or proudly throw it at the face of any adult who asked the 12 year old whether it was a doctor  she wanted to be “just like her parents”.  When the inevitable reign of self doubt took over as teen-age set in, the only thing I didn’t question about myself was my decision that I was going to be a writer. It made sense-I couldn’t be happier than I was amongst books, I excelled in English which was the only subject I cared about in school, I loved writing assignments, and every single English teacher I had had since I was 9 had at some point told me I would make a good writer. It didn’t occur to me to question that I hardly wrote anything more than those assignments, the usual rambling in my diary, and the occasional poem for the school magazine that my father compares to the acne from teenage that had to come…and go; I knew I would be the happiest writing, and I held on to that without a moment of doubt. But when the inevitable realization finally hit, I felt “my self-possession gutter” like a man hitting midlife crisis in Eliot poetry, and I started doubting everything I had believed about myself. I questioned my right to call writing my passion, told myself I would never be a writer. But something came out of this period of self doubt and loathing-I started writing. It hit me that a lot of things could stop me from being a writer, but the biggest of them would be if I did not write. So I wrote, venturing into the territory I had always claimed as mine, petrified that I would find out otherwise. I wrote furiously, more to prove to myself than anything else, trying to make my niche and find some earth below my feet . I became my hardest- and only- critic, scrutinizing every word that fell through my fingers. Then, I don’t know when or how, but the most amazing thing happened- I became a writer. No, my words did not make their way into print where public recognition christened me a writer, but I knew I had become a writer. Somewhere along the tentative steps I had taken, I had learned how to walk….I had learned what it felt to be a writer. Writing had become the only way I knew how to live, and I loved every bit of it, growing into it steadily, little by little, word by word. The tap of the keyboard and the slowly filling word document never left my head……Everything I saw, felt, discovered, every conversation, walk in the woods, sunset, and cup of tea was turned into words in my head. True that only a fraction of what I wrote in my head materialized into actual pieces, and that I kept anything I wrote tightly to myself, but I had built my relationship with the spouse I had always claimed as mine. Some days we were a couple in love, going hand in hand, reading each others mind, and creating words that flowed out in perfect harmony; some days we were not on the same page and I struggled to find the words that could speak my mind. But I loved everything about it, from the way it starts- an idea that suddenly hits, a burning desire to put something to words;  to the process of writing- the attempts at trying to find a frame or at least a remote hint of a theme to fit in your ideas, wondering how to tell that story that someone else would want to read what you want to say, searching for that one right word; to the frustration of writers’ block….I loved each bit of it. I had what I was looking for, I was a writer.

But the emptiness that has now become part of me makes me realize that perhaps I was alone again. I have stopped seeing stories everywhere I looked, and the ease with which words formed themselves in my head seems an alien feeling now. The tap of the keyboard, the image of the jumble of ideas finding their places in a book, they are all gone. What remains is the knowledge of the emptiness, of the incapability. 

 nighthawk

n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future—that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.¹

So, like posting the overdue apology, I write. I make do with second hand inspiration, borrowing someone else’s words because my own lack that which matters. It isn’t the “lump in the throat[2]” that drives me to write anymore, but the menacing shriek of the nighthawk. I force myself to coax out words to pacify the hawk that never leaves my shoulder, only to find it growing louder everyday, now fat and indulgent on the empty clichés and weak metaphors I throw up. But the shrieks keep me writing, for it reminds me that a lot of things could stop me from being a writer, but the biggest of them would be if I did not write.

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[1] The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/

[2] Robert Frost. “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”