tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60420672155823829332024-03-13T09:31:50.166-07:00Lying Down in RealityNithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-50873515386021198002018-03-12T17:29:00.001-07:002018-03-12T17:52:08.569-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's 5:30 am and I had to turn on the fan. I've been resisting turning it on for the past week, determined not to acknowledge that summer is here, sitting resentfully in the heat and willing myself into feeling cold, not hot. I couldn't sustain the fiction for very long. It is time.<br />
Summers in Ahmedabad are a lot worse than the summers I've endured elsewhere, mainly because of the dust. The Mughal emperor Jehangir described Ahmedabad variously as <i>Gardabad</i> (the land of dust), <i>Samumistan</i> (the land of the pestilential wind), <i>Bimaristan</i> (the land of the ill), <i>Zaqumzar</i> (the thorn patch) and finally as <i>Jahannumabad</i> (the land of hell). He certainly visited here in the summer.<br />
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Just as I am about to leave it, I find myself developing an affection for this city. The people are brusque but kind, impatient but generous. I find that every pavement has a terracotta bowl which is filled with water regularly for street dogs. Yesterday, a man fell off his bike on the road before me. Before I could react, two autos and a car had stopped and their drivers were running to help him up. If I wish people "Good morning" though, they stare at me as if I am an alien. Every time I cross a road, I do so with my heart in my hand, praying that an impatient motorist doesn't run me over.<br />
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I've recently turned thirty, and I was lucky enough to get not one, but two birthday cakes, made especially for me, by people I love the most. One homemade birthday cake is incredible, two scare me. How did I get so lucky? Dare I get used to this? Is it possible to get them to make a chocolate one next year?<br />
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I find as I grow older though, that I have less anxiety, as does everyone, I suppose. The wonderful thing about age is that you have fewer fucks to give in general, because you realise that fucks are limited. I've been counting out my fucks every evening, like a paymaster would with a daily labourer. Losing out on a job I worked to get? Half a fuck, on loan, to be returned in the morning with interest. What to make for dinner? Two fucks, make it special. How much I weigh? Zero fucks and deposit one please, there's a loan here from your past that needs to be repaid. I was profilgate with fucks when I was younger. The mean thing someone said to me that once would've sent me into a spiral of self doubt? No way am I paying out fucks for that today. I'm not running a charity here. You're paid a living wage, aren't you? Specialise in insecurity if you want to earn more.<br />
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*<span style="font-size: x-small;">Okay, maybe the job was more like three fucks, but they still need to be returned in the morning. Onward and upward!</span><br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-21779394714763654762017-11-15T17:04:00.000-08:002017-11-15T17:04:01.736-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What do you eat when you're lonely?<br />
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I've been waking up before the sun of late. I get two hours of darkness before the sun bestirs itself, which is just long enough to go from "Booyah! I'm going to get so much done" to "I'm sad and hungry and have spent the past hour reading articles on the internet and developing a crush on a YouTube singer". It becomes time to take myself off the internet and to eat something before getting to work, just at about the time the sun rises after having slept sensibly for twelve hours.<br />
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It is a different beast, this early morning hunger. It is the one time of day that I don't crave sweets. I also don't manifest the usual symptoms of hunger: the hanger, the snippiness, the hollowness in the stomach. Instead, I get sadder and droopier and send off sentimental text messages to people who are still sensibly asleep. After the third message, I know it is time to go rummaging in the kitchen.<br />
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Coffee, of course, is a given. In the summer, when even the early mornings are sweaty, I like to pour my hot coffee over ice and contemplate how mankind tries to make nature its bitch, but in winter, I like to pull on my bright green socks and fix myself a hot cup of black coffee that I sip while trying not to look at the dishes piled in the sink. Of late, I've also discovered the marvel that is nuts roasted in the microwave. I used to think that nuts needed to be roasted in a pan, watched vigilantly and tossed regularly, and still, you would be guaranteed to burn a few. Then I read<a href="http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/toast-nuts-in-the-microwave.html"> an article on Serious Eats</a> that suggested using the microwave. I was incredulous, but I tried it, and folks, I've never looked back. In the article, Kenji Lopez-Alt recommends toasting them at one-minute intervals and stirring in between, but I like to live dangerously. I microwave them on high, using the scientific technique of sniffing at the microwave door to tell when they're done. Once I smell toasted nuts with a slight edge of burning, I know I've got them just where I want them. Your standards may be more exacting. I leave them to cool while sipping my coffee and reading <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/lindy-west">Lindy West</a>. Then, I dust my toasted nuts half-heartedly with salt, none of which adheres to them. I could use oil to make them adhere, but I don't like the accompanying grease, so I simply pop a nut into my mouth, followed by a pinch of salt from the plate. It tastes perfectly seasoned.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-509508828130634532017-10-11T03:57:00.000-07:002017-10-11T03:57:29.180-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I feel beautiful today, reader. It's a rare feeling for me to look into a mirror and to unreservedly like what I see, but today, I couldn't stop staring at myself. I admired the curl of my hair, the shape of my lips. I listened to music and danced along, reveling in the tense-release of my muscles, the grace of my fingertips. I painted my lips with sparkly gloss and watched the light reflect off them. Even now as I type this, I keep sneaking glances into the mirror, tilting myself to a forty five degree angle to find my reflection, and flipping my head from side to side to set my curls bouncing. I wish I could feel this way all of the time, that we could all feel this way about ourselves all of the time. Like we're made of glitter and steel.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-80123360781646445302015-09-30T00:36:00.001-07:002015-09-30T00:36:54.461-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm in a new place reader, again, for a very little while. I'm struggling to stay myself though, holding on to my routines even when they don't make sense, simply because they are familiar. When everything else changes, we crave the conventional with a fierce, illogical nostalgia, no? This is how religions calcify. If I had to start a religion it would decree that every day begin with the ceremonial brewing of coffee. We would gather together to watch in silence as the decoction dripped down the filter, drip, drip, drip. Any fidgeting would invite a fierce frown. When we finally had enough for one cupful, it would be decanted reverentially into a special mug, gold plated plated with indecipherable carvings on the outside, preferably in an imitation of the hieroglyphics of a forgotten language. It would be stirred with water, just off the boil. Then we would pass the cup around, each taking one long, sighing sip. I'd go first, because I invented the religion.<br />
I don't know what we would believe in, beyond the necessity of coffee. Be kind to dogs, I think. That feminism simply means acknowledging equality and humanity of all the sexes, silly. Men's rights are not a thing. Saint Mindy Kaling would have a day. So would Saint Marie Curie. Ooh, Saint Raghuram Rajan. Our deity would be a dog with a mechanical tail that wagged in blessing. We would preach tolerance towards cats and the catty. Cruelty to animals will be our greatest sin. Wasting coffee the second greatest. Maybe turning down dessert the third.<br />
What a happy bunch of sleep-deprived diabetics we will be, in our houses filled with puppies. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-44517575335484164242015-09-05T21:29:00.001-07:002015-09-05T21:29:26.574-07:00Anywhere but here<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If I had to describe myself in one word reader, the word would be restless. It's an irritating word. It niggles at you. You struggle for calm, breathe in, breathe out. How many times more before you can stop? Stroke the dog's fur over and over till he gets up and walks away. Do a hundred jumping jacks. Stop at 62 and feel like a failure. The phone rang, what were you supposed to do? Read three things at the same time, as the scolding in your head grows louder and louder. Write. Temporary relief.<br />
I've been struggling all week for calm. For a plan and a routine. I invent excuses not to follow either. I make lists and cast them aside. They grow longer, the words larger, redder, screaming at me, apoplectic. I escape into the company of other people. In caring about them I can safely forget about me. But they do not understand. How could they? They have their lists too, although perhaps their lists don't yell at them in angry red words.<br />
The words are subsiding now, tapering. They do not like being complained about. A few are fading away- they aren't important. Not right now, anyway. The words on top are darkening, deepening to oxblood and then black. That is how a branding by fire looks, no? Seared into flesh and memory.<br />
I must go.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-57779665724753619422015-09-04T00:00:00.000-07:002015-09-16T22:44:55.464-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's one of those slow, hot days. The kind of day when rising from a chair is sticky and requires considering and the dog pants listlessly. The washing machine is as energetic as ever, its mechanical whine sounds admonitory: "If I can spin, so can you." So spin we do, about our everyday tasks, scattering, then coming together, over desultory conversations and cups of too-hot tea.<br />
I want to buy an orange dress, the colour of a <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sunset">setting sun</a>. A few years ago, I would have phrased that differently. I need an orange dress, I would have said. After all, I didn't own a dress in that colour. The void in my wardrobe constituted a need. I have learnt better since. I do not need new dresses. I need food and clothing, yes, and love. I have a glut of all three. So my want is as desultory as my conversation today, meaningless and soon forgotten.<br />
Reader, I've been working and baking, thinking, thinking, trying not to think. I haven't wanted to talk so much because talking crystallises thought and sometimes disproves it. I was afraid of what I might learn when I spoke.<br />
This post, and every other post on this blog is terribly self-indulgent. Have space, will publish, after all. And the internet gives us all space and swallows our words whole. I wonder if this self-indulgence is harmless, or if it is portentous. The more we indulge the self the more it swallows us whole. And the internet is a black hole masquerading in white and colour: if it can swallow words, it can swallow selves too. We could become bodies walking the earth, carrying our souls in our pockets, in our phones. Every night, they get plugged into the walls to recharge, while our bodies sleep.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-3041472985673969862014-07-23T04:22:00.000-07:002014-07-23T04:22:17.618-07:00"And the soul of the rose went into my blood/As the music clash'd in the hall"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It is impossible to be lonely when you have the hills for company. Every time I look up, I grin and ask myself, "How did I get so lucky?" You see, reader, I've been living in this place with its wind and hills and butterflies. Its every aspect reminds me of a calendar we had one year, where every month was a different watercolour of a forest, each greener than the last. So June was greener than April and December so green, it was almost black. I won't be here in December. <br />
It will rain today; the wind is heavy with promise. It's been whipping me up into a frenzy all day, churning my clothes around me, snatching away my tea cup, spattering the grass with its contents, and then whistling away. I am as restless as it, unable to concentrate on anything too long. The rain will come and then, we will be calm.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-91241177071451230842014-05-17T02:37:00.000-07:002014-05-17T02:37:06.166-07:00"I wandered dizzy as a moth, towards the lodestar of my one desire"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is a bug in my room. It is big and black and buzzes constantly. It is too heavy to reach the tube light, so instead, it hurls itself over and over again at the wall below the light with suicidal desperation.<br />
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I felt sorry for it and shooed it outside, but it returned the next time I opened the door, flew unerringly to below the tube light, and resumed throwing itself against the wall. "Fly away," I want to tell it. "The night is cool and fragrant; the sky is full of clouds and glows with a misshapen moon. Strange flowers bloom there, and snakes hiss in the silence. There are so many others to fall in love with, and a night is a long time for a bug."<br />
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But the bug cannot listen. It will be dead by morning. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-70313593577164661712013-12-17T05:40:00.000-08:002013-12-17T05:40:02.523-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm lonely today reader, and not even the dog will do. It's odd, because I'm quite surrounded by books and people, and I have this screen that I'm writing on that connects me to the entire world. Yet I'm strongly tempted to fall into a decline and am aweary, aweary. I don't would that I were dead yet; that would be taking it too far. But I think I would like to sleep for a long time. It's the winter, perhaps. I went for a walk this morning and the fog was so thick that we could barely see ten feet ahead. The street looked like I was seeing it through an Instagram filter. It was lovely, and chillingly remote For all that we scream that we want to be alone, the thought of being really, truly alone, without anyone to talk to or think of, is rather frightening, isn't it?<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-53251273773283249332013-11-03T07:21:00.000-08:002013-11-03T07:21:54.998-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is Diwali tonight. I went out to the terrace to watch the fireworks. There are rockets that rise up like squiggly-tailed comets and explode in showers of red, green and yellow sparks. The houses on our street are lit up. The one on our right in a mesh of multicoloured, blinking lights, the one on our right is lined with what are shaped like oil lamps, but glow through the night without a single flicker. Our house is dark save for one lamp above the gate. We are in mourning this year.<br />
The dog came out with me and for a while, he was kept very busy. He would bark at one rocket before being distracted by another whistling past. A thousand-shot thunderbomb finally silenced him: he couldn't get a bark in edgewise.<br />
It sounds like a thousand drummers are all playing while very drunk. There are beats, high pitched and low, with rapidly changing patterns. The steady beat every two seconds is from one of those crackers that goes up once and explodes over and over, sometimes in pink, sometimes in gold and sometimes in red and blue. Then there are whooshes from the flowerpots and hisses from uncoiling fiery snakes. The rockets whistle. A police siren wails.<br />
The air is heavy with gunpowder. Every so often, the fireworks reveal patches of grey smoke in the ruddy sky. It is like the largest palette ever seen: the grey blends into the black and the red while the sprays of green and yellow and blue and pink quickly disappear into the grotesque mix. There is no moon tonight; it did well to keep away. Its brightness has been surpassed, a thousand times over.<br />
Tomorrow, the children will go back to school on streets littered with ash. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-64883374769986376112013-06-08T07:10:00.000-07:002013-06-08T10:06:35.972-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We are waiting for the monsoon. The earth around here has heated till the water on it boils and rises and hangs in the air in a dense, humid cloud. Breathing is difficult and smells never dissipate. We are surrounded by the unmistakeable smell of rot.<br />
It is in the flesh of the mangoes, too soft, too yielding. They begin to rot from the moment they are picked. The flesh, once so firm and turgid, putrefies into an acidic slurry. There is the smell of sweat in the streets, the sweat of thousands, walking, their heads bowed under the assault of the sun. They plod past, dimly seeking shade, and relief. We spray scents to cover the smell of sweat, and they linger in the air, too heavy, too floral... unnatural. The flowers shrivel quickly, their petals curling and turning brown, as their stems, buried in water in a hopeless effort to keep them alive, turn grey and gangrenous. Food begins to spoil from the moment it is lifted off the stove. We smother it in spice to keep from remembering that we are eating dead things.<br />
All this is captured in the windless air, collapsing around us with impenetrable lassitude. This is it: the smell of rot, of cloying sweetness and of decay, of the sense that we can't carry on much longer, in this manner. This is how it will smell when the world ends, when the rains don't come any more.<br />
But not yet. The rains will come this year; the satellites say so. We wait for it and count off the days. We watch maps charting its progress and listen for the weatherman. We wander about with dull, heavy-eyed hope, while the sunshine clubs our eyelids.<br />
It is the greatest theatre known to us. First will come the clouds, then the wind, then the expectation. This will happen over and over again, working our nerves into a frenzy that goes far past the unbearable. We will come to a standstill, all our senses trained upwards in mute hope. Then and only then will the skies split apart, and bring down the deluge.<br />
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-7471530410973225152013-04-30T10:09:00.003-07:002013-04-30T10:09:43.819-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Reader, I discovered a poem by A. E. Housman today, and I can't stop reading it over and over. Discovering a piece of great writing is a lot like discovering gold, isn't it? You sift through pebbles and dust for weeks and months till finally, you find a nugget.<br />
Read it with me?<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">When green buds hang in the elm like dust </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">And sprinkle the lime like rain,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Forth I wander, forth I must</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And drink of life again.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Forth I must by hedgerow bowers</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To look at the leaves uncurled</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And stand in the fields where cuckoo flowers</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Are lying about the world.</span></div>
</span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">- A. E. Housman</span></div>
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-72308250072812806202013-04-20T10:01:00.000-07:002013-04-20T19:59:24.776-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is summer now, and I feel cheated by spring.<br />
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Panda treats the floor of the house like a Victorian fainting couch, collapsing on it dramatically, at my feet. He is there now, panting dully. We've shifted subtly into our summer routine, which is pretty much the same as our winter routine, just later by half an hour and with less cussing on my part.<br />
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I like routines. I like that once in place they don't require too much thought, freeing up my mind for daydreaming. I like the stability they bring and the sense of constancy, however artificial. I remember only too well just how fragile this structure is and how devastating its collapse can be. I like to think that I am strengthening it, little by little, day after day, as I read my newspaper and sip my coffee, while Panda peeks at me coyly from behind the marigolds. It is painstaking work with little apparent reward, except when I look back and see just how far I've come.</div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-59064007523692351322013-03-20T11:04:00.000-07:002013-04-20T09:41:44.499-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is a wild wind blowing outside. I've spent the past hour in a sensory daze, glutting myself on words and sentences. There was Leonard Cohen (<i>Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in</i>) and Tom Stoppard (<i>We are tragedians, you see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means</i>) and Rousseau (<i>We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves</i>). The wind interrupted me rudely, banging a door downstairs to get my attention. <br />
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It's almost midnight and there's a lightning storm on. Every so often the sky splits apart and the whole world turns silver. Panda remains unimpressed: he is fast asleep under the bed, his breath misting the tile. I crawled under there a little while ago to rub his belly. I was lonely, and the storm makes me pensive. He stared at me with his blue-brown eyes for a minute, then rolled onto his back and fell back to sleep. </div>
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Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-24849312719231831742013-02-22T11:00:00.000-08:002013-02-23T08:28:32.647-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've had a couple of not-so-great days reader, and have been reminded of my unhealthy tendency to brood. I tried everything to get out of my funk, from gallons of coffee, to strenuous exercise, to reading poetry, but nothing worked for long.<br />
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Today when I was driving back from work, I realised that I felt uncomfortably warm. That hasn't happened in months. I shrugged off my sweater while I waited for a signal to change. It was only symbolic: I had to put the sweater back on half an hour later, but I still take this to mean that spring is here. I also noticed marigolds blooming along the pavement, and they're either new, or I've been too lost these past few days to notice gaudy yellow flowers sprouting everywhere.<br />
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When I reached home I tried something I haven't done in a long time. I sang. Oh, I'm always humming and I frequently sing to my mirror with a deodorant canister as a mike, but today I dusted off my electronic <i>tanpura</i>, dug out my music notes, and pretended I was singing on a stage to a large and enraptured audience. Panda came to enquiringly sniff the <i>tanpura </i>and stayed to listen for a while.<br />
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I was pleased with my voice today. I began with the most basic exercises, singing them off the music textbook amma bought me when I was seven. It's a photocopied book, since prints of Karnatic music textbooks weren't easily available in Delhi in 1995. In several places the print was either unclear or non-existent, so the blanks were filled in by me. My writing from back then is remarkably similar to how I write today. Large, impatient letters, in multicoloured ink. (What? I like colour. I think it brightens up the page.) I remember how eager I was back then to finish with this book and graduate to the good stuff: the <i>varnams </i>and the <i>keerthanas </i>that the more advanced students were singing. I have a deplorable sense of rhythm and because of it was made to repeat a lesson once: I didn't get the <i>alankaras </i>right and my teacher said she wouldn't start me on <i>geethams </i>until I did.<br />
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I did eventually nail them though, and I think I nailed them again today, as I blazed through them, high speed. Then I sang a <i>geetham</i>, a <i>swarajathi</i>, a <i>varnam</i>, a <i>kriti </i>and finally a <i>thillana</i>. I imagined the audience cheering my every vocal flourish. I threw everything I had into my performance, and then some. I waved my arms in vigorous expression, made dramatic faces, grunted praise when I executed a tricky <i>gamakam</i>, and eventually closed my eyes in ecstasy. When I finally opened them, Panda was gone, but I did feel much better. I nodded and smiled graciously for the thunderous applause, and then went to see about dinner.<br />
<br /></div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-12424656711883419042013-02-16T07:40:00.000-08:002013-02-16T07:40:16.705-08:00Gaslight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Panda just came in from his walk and shook raindrops all over me.<br />
<br />
I was thinking about gaslighting today. The word is derived from the Ingrid Bergman movie <i>Gaslight</i>, in which her husband attempts to convince her that she is insane by altering little things around their house. However, when she notices, he insists that she is imagining it. Doesn't it seem sometimes like the whole world is gaslighting you? When the papers are filled with stories of rape and corruption and executions, and you can't hurl a brick out of your window without hitting a cynic? When you're made to feel as if any sort of idealism is foolish? But perhaps I'm being too dramatic. We don't discuss those things here. This is a place for poetry and music, dogs and books, joy and pain. Of course I have opinions: painstakingly wrought nascent ones about everything from feminism (I'm a feminist) to the death penalty (I'm against it). Maybe it is time to find a place for them.<br />
<br />
I'm spending the eve of my twenty fifth birthday cleaning out the dog's ears. Then we'll argue, because he'll want to eat his earwax and I'll protest that he's being disgusting. He'll concede ungraciously by rolling on his back and pushing me away with his paws. And then we'll sit by the window and watch the rain together. It's a rum old world.<br />
<br /></div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-85155053454110870762012-10-31T04:31:00.000-07:002015-09-05T23:32:07.450-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I have new curtains as part of my long-forgotten reorganisation drive. Dull gold with blue-green vines. I think they go with my walls. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like them. Panda likes them too. He comes barrelling through them several times a day, pointy nose first.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> keep them parted for as long as I can though, in order to catch stray rays of sunshine. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It's getting a little bit colder each day. This morning when Panda woke me up, he had to wait impatiently as I rooted in my cupboard for a sweater. It's his fault really. Sensible dogs wait for the sun to come out before they demand walks.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I miss the sun. It slipped away from right under our noses, and now it's gone all the way to the Southern Hemisphere. The rays it sends from the Indian Ocean really aren't the same thing. </span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Panda was sitting in a stray ray of light from the window yesterday. It illuminated his chin and his white whiskers, turning them golden, like he'd guiltily swallowed sunshine.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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</div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-562233994495389332012-10-07T04:03:00.000-07:002012-10-31T04:39:20.250-07:00He ate it up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sometimes, reader, I worry if I'm spoiling my dog. He hasn't been eating, this past week. The vet says this often happens to dogs during mating season and that we aren't to worry. It's hard not to worry though, if your dog is visibly losing weight, doesn't drink milk, refuses all his treats and isn't tempted by even his favourite illicit cream-filled biscuits. Besides, I missed having him sitting at the kitchen door sniffing eagerly while I baked.<br />
<br />
We tried everything. Liver stimulant tonics, exercise, the silent treatment, several attempts of me sticking my face into his bowl and pretending to eat its contents with audible relish. What finally worked was rice flour balls. On the day before yesterday, Patti was teaching me how to make <i>kuzhakattais </i>(which will show up in a blog post on Poppadom shortly) and we had a little leftover rice flour, which we rolled into balls to steam and season later. Panda sat up and took notice when I walked past holding a bowlful of <i>kuzhakattais</i>, so on an impulse I took out a ball and rolled it across the floor. Panda chased after it and ate it up. Overjoyed, we rolled ball after ball at him and he ate them all up.<br />
<br />
Since then, egged on by Patti, I've been cooking freshly ground rice flour daily, kneading the resultant dough, rolling it into balls and steaming them. Then, once they cool sufficiently, I lob one at Panda's head, he runs after it, and then crawls under the bed to eat it. We this over and over again, till he loses interest. Luckily, his memory is very short, so we repeat performances several times a day. It has to be the most roundabout way of feeding a dog.<br />
<br /></div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-52325138968687723092012-09-25T22:25:00.003-07:002012-10-04T02:45:56.630-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week, a girl committed suicide at the metro station I
board the train from. I read about it in the papers the morning after she did
it. When I went that day to catch my train I saw a small area of the pavement
cordoned off by yellow tape and tried unsuccessfully to avoid looking at the
dark red stain in the middle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tried to be nicer to the metro staff that day. When I
stood waiting for my train, I stood at the point from which she must’ve jumped.
The red stain was directly below. I thought of how she must’ve clambered over
the railing and let go, taking care to fall head first. I pitied her, because
to my thinking, suicide is a terrible way to waste a life and I couldn’t even
imagine what horror in her existence drove her to it. I also resented her, for
making me think about her at all. She was gone and yet we, who never knew her
when she lived, we were now thinking of her. The people who were walking below
when she landed before them. The paramedics who must’ve tried to revive her.
The policemen who she’d left with yet another unsolved case and a great deal of
paperwork. The metro guard who was now standing at the end of the platform and
trying to be inconspicuous, but eyeing me warily. All of us asking “Why?” but wearily
resigned to never knowing the answer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stain and the tape were there for a week, and I tried
unsuccessfully to avoid looking at them each time I walked past. Today they
were finally gone, the pavement was scrubbed clean, and people were walking
over the spot, talking, hurrying, intent upon getting to wherever they were
going. I circled around it, looking away, as I walked home. I looked at the
pavement below my feet instead, and each <i>pan</i>
stain on the concrete looked like a spatter of blood. </div>
</div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-44999594843260131382012-08-30T09:32:00.000-07:002012-08-30T09:32:33.892-07:00I am Nithya, hear me roar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm very chuffed, reader. I fell to cleaning up my computer and I'm finding this organisation drive rather addictive. I've already created folders for all my docs (me!) and discarded any number of puzzlingly-titled notepad entries (some of them were downright cryptic). I've updated my software and even organised my thousands of Panda and food photos, updated my food blog, and finally started using Google Calendar. Now, I have SMS alerts coming to me every half-hour, worded with escalating levels of urgency depending upon how unlikely I am to do my scheduled tasks. I know you, reader, already do this and you're chuckling kindly at my excitement. I can't help it. I'm very hopeful right now that even someone as shatter-brained as me will eventually claw her way to the top of things, and maybe even hold on there for a little while.<br />
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Wish me luck reader.</div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-50615461395122033422012-08-24T10:21:00.000-07:002012-08-24T10:22:06.491-07:00I love ya tomorrow, you're always a day away<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
All my life I've been more or less harum-scarum, reader, and as I think back, it's rarely served me well. I push deadlines as far as they will go and then proceed to ignore them. I'm clean, but I've never been accused of being tidy. I write like I do everything else: haphazardly. I'm always pleasantly surprised when things fall into place despite me, and that's always nice, but that really doesn't cut it any more does it?<br />
<br />
I want to be one of those people who has all her bills filed away in a drawer, and doesn't have to rescue her bank statement from being chewed up by the dog because it was lying on the floor and fair game. I want to use post-it notes for annotations while reading instead of for doodling on when I'm on the phone. The sort of person who, yes, plans her activities on Google Calendar every month and then sets daily reminders and actually follows them. I suppose I should start by flipping my wall calendar which still thinks it's March. It's all just... exhausting to think of.<br />
<br />
Still, think of it I will. Tomorrow. We shall begin tomorrow, reader. It takes three weeks to form a habit, so just you see. By the fourteenth of September, I shall be a new, frighteningly efficient woman. I'll even buy those multicoloured highlighters and arrange them in my stationery drawer. Colour coded. First, I'll clear out a drawer for stationery.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow.</div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-66443342308217381722012-08-22T04:19:00.002-07:002012-08-23T02:49:30.579-07:00On a day like today<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Do you also have days, reader, when you feel like you're sleepwalking? I think about atmospheric pressure in times like these; how all of us carry a column of air that extends all the way into space, on our shoulders. Our blood exerts outward pressure to balance the weight of the atmosphere, which is what keeps us from getting crushed under that enormous force, like a sapling under a tank.<br />
On some days, doesn't it feel like your blood just gives up? I think of blood vessels bursting in little red pops, under that tremendous onslaught of pressure. I can't see them, but the image is vivid in my mind. My spine is all I have to hold me up and it isn't doing a very good job. Gravity drags me down and the air above smothers me. All I want to do is lie down, curled up in a ball, and let the forces do their worst.<br />
It's easy to be happy, most days. It's on days like today that it's so much harder, and -I tell myself- a true test of character. It's for days like today that I began writing this blog, at a time when every day felt like today. So, I'm not going to think about atmospheric pressure any more. I'm going to sit on my chair with a straight spine, sip my coffee, and talk to you.<br />
In the office today, I sat next to a glass window that stretched from floor to roof. I could see people and cars below, but hear no sound except the fan above me and the clickety-clack of computer keys from all the cubicles around. The light outside was gray and foreboding, yet with that peculiar clarity that only the rains bring. Even sunshine is never this clear. Nearby objects are brighter, colours stand out more, and everything far away and therefore not worth considering is blurred out by the fog. It brought a sense of immediacy that I found I needed. Who cares if the future and the past are foggy and unclear? We have the present, and it is full of puddles, umbrellas, and bright-eyed dogs. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-37919000147964897422012-08-14T19:32:00.000-07:002012-08-14T19:39:11.200-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ah reader, today is going to be a good day. Even if all my original plans for the day have been derailed by a rather nasty sore throat, at least my voice has changed to pleasantly croaky instead of its usual borderline shrill. I amuse myself to no end by croaking at the dog. He can't understand why the creature before him looks like me but doesn't talk like me, and after jumping up at me and barking in my face, he gives up on the mystery and chases his tail till he's dizzy. Then I laugh wheezily, which sets him off all over again. We're easily amused in these parts.<br />
I gave up on my plan of going on a long run and stayed in to play with the dog instead. Playing with him these days is quite a production, because he will not stop trying to dig up the lawn. He's also embarrassingly disobedient, which means each time I catch him trying to dig up the lawn, I can't command him to stop. I have to run at him and chase him away, which he of of course thinks is tremendous fun, so we do it over and over again till I break the cycle by offering him a biscuit. It's a lowering thought that even with my dog, the only way I can command obedience is through bribery.<br />
Still, once I lure him in with the biscuit, I catch hold of his collar. I'm polite and wait for him to finish chewing. He shows me no such courtesy. Once he's done eating his biscuit, he promptly rolls over and kicks up at me, trying everything he can to make me let go. I get covered in grass and dog hair and streaks of mud, but I hold on doggedly till I can drag him, still kicking, to the verandah, where I reattach his leash and march him off for a bath.<br />
Most other dogs I've bathed have stood miserable and still while I played the water over them. Panda protests, vociferously. I need to watch him carefully and steer clear of his teeth. He also rears up on his hind legs and waves his forepaws about, which I have learnt through experience, can do quite a bit of damage. Still, eventually, I manage to get him bathed, dried and powdered and back indoors. Now he's collapsed under the bed with all the consciousness of a job well done, and I am collapsed on my chair, sweaty, dishevelled, mud-streaked and triumphant. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-44228387607951800972012-08-13T05:00:00.002-07:002012-08-13T08:42:11.204-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It rained today. One moment it was sunny and I was blithely walking out of the metro station, the next moment, I was dashing for cover under the metro rail, fumbling frantically for my umbrella. I don't like this umbrella; indeed it has all the elements I dislike most in umbrellas. It's one of those really compact ones with two bends in the spokes, which make it blow inside-out at the slightest gust of wind. It's also sparkly, purple, has a stubby little handle and has a translucent lace inset bordered by sequins. I like my umbrellas long, with curvy handles and coloured in all the hues of a rainbow. The sort that if you spin fast enough, will look white. The sort that you could use to pretend you were a combination of Captain Hook and Mister Fantastic. The sort you could use as a prop <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmCpOKtN8ME">when tap dancing on the pavement</a>. I've never had one of those. My umbrellas have either been boring and black, or inappropriately purple.<br />
Still, an umbrella is an umbrella and I was one of the few people exiting the metro station who'd had the foresight to pack one. I dug mine out, opened it with a bit of a flourish and stepped out jauntily on the road. Then, a passing car raced through a puddle and splashed me from head to toe. </div>
Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6042067215582382933.post-66657341689534784512012-08-07T21:03:00.003-07:002012-08-07T21:03:28.855-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ah reader, I want to bake cookies today. The sort of cookies that inflate in the oven like balloons and then fall back down upon themselves as if pricked by a pin. I also want to go running and not stop till I'm panting and my legs hurt and I'm tired. I want to play on my poor, neglected veena till my fingers blister and I finally learn how to make music. I want to tease the dog till he rolls onto his back and kicks out at me petulantly. I want to learn...<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>and cabbages and kings, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>and why the sea is boiling hot, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>and if pigs have wings." </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Life just now is terribly interesting, reader. In this next week, I plan on doing all those things, and more. </div>
</div>Nithyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05141643160173746148noreply@blogger.com0