Greek Birds

Tango in Oslo

2011-04-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4JP6bX7fo&feature=related

Red Moon

2010-11-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

Toil, for you cant find relief
In the drunk-evening songs
Your mates sing by the mejhi;
Bound yourself in knots,
As irregular migrants filter
through government offices
Sweat, salt, skin:
Opium-feckled eyes.
Hold,the reins of your desire
On xewali-fragrant autumn dusks;
No point venturing out
Into the cold-blooded dwellings
of security posts
Only the half-dead roam
the curfewed streets
On nights like these.

Notes:

mejhi: a traditional bon-fire lit mostly during the Assamese festival of Magh Bihu in January.
xewali: (Assamese word) an edible flower, also called, night-flowering jasmine.

2010-11-16T04:02:00.001-08:00

You need an infinite stretch of time ahead of you to start to think, infinite energy to make the smallest decision. The world is getting denser. The immense number of useless projects is bewildering. Too many things have to be put in to balance up an uncertain scale. You can't disappear anymore. You die in a state of total indecision.

- Jean Baudrillard

"Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" and speculative moo-moo

2010-10-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

by David Hume, ed. by Dorothy Coleman:

"What peculiar priviledge has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions: But sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion."

and Heidegger has something to add too: "questioning is the piety of thought".

so let us doubt, reinvent and question all we have been told to accept. since half baked knowledge is no good, and we have passed that golden age of ignorance, one might as well go the whole hog!

Now is the time to manifest
Madness
Full Circle.
One has to rein
the Mind
to Focus.

And came upon these lines on a poet's webpage:

Art demands constant toil, incessant work, and undistracted time.

"Until you reach your liberated and free self, isolated from the constricting selves of others, you will not accomplish anything. Art is strongest love. It avails itself only to those who thoroughly surrender their whole existence to it."
- Forugh Farrokhzad

Highway City Rodeo

2010-10-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

Handle bars on the reins
of a slow-moving jet-plane.
Troggling humpledy a’times
Et serpentine s’times.
All roads are marked in blue and white
and green signs,
yet It loses its means
to various ends.

Mechanics with smoth-clayed faces
Kids with potty flairs.
Baba in snake-skin suit (attire)
Powdered chalk on the face.

Love in the back-seats
of its carriages
And across
these aisles.

30 May’10

Scraps from a dialogue diatribe

2010-10-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

On reading 'Paradise Lost', by Milton~

Aesthetics: Eve's spine is harmony.
Ethics: But was the snake historically grievanced?
Metaphysics: Thy will always be done.
Feminist: Revolution- death to the sexist tongues.
Avantgarde: Two-ness= 1ness+ otherness.

Adam: Where am I?
Milton: You are why the apples are savoury.

nonsense verse, mindscaping earnestly:)

To My Valentine-Ogden Nash

2010-10-28T09:08:00.001-07:00

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That’s how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That’s how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That’s how you’re loved by me.

Poker PotLuck, a scene re-enacted.

2010-10-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Scene: Sunny morning. A colonial club in Maymyo, Burma. two gentlemen shake hands, exchange names, Byron, an experienced pokerface urges Ballistic, the curious newcomer, novice-at-poker to the table. ...

52 cards unfurl,

Byron: Should we deal than?
Ballistic: I have dealt in microfinance in detail.
Byron: Lay them cards, mate. Lemme show you the Royal Flush, first.
Ballistic: O brimmingbroomsticksbloomsburydale, you are of noble blood, after all!!!
Byron: Foul!

Delight!

2010-10-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

Let all your fantasies fly
To a bower-garden under
the window.
Lots of green;
and mauve flowers,
smooth petals and
soft pollen on the tips of tendrils.
Kite-flying festival
Overhead,
In autumn’s titillating temperatures;
we hug closer in
our bower-tower
and gaze out at the painted
blues skies dotted
with multiple bearded sheep
stretched out on a vast canvas
for our hungry eyes.

23 Oct’10

Ambers and Woodsmoke

2010-10-28T09:01:00.001-07:00

Inhale, Exhale,
The mist turns a shade heavier;
As the story unravels mystically
High notes of bird- song
fill the stealthy time:
One catches the wayward breezes
Who whisper erotically
at doorsteps,
woodsmoke smell mingled with pungent sweat
water-diluted brushes of black paint
smudged with charcoal stiffs…

Fire crackles,
Colors explode,
Senses heighten,
As our feet dangle
on the edges of our dreams.

August'10, Vattakannal.

time warp looking glass

2010-10-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

time is in a loop, i am in a warp
in a strip that can be
continuously replayed,

like a new vibrant dream,
like, a strange explorative landscape,
like a powerful work of art,
a hollow scream inside your visera,
waiting to burst out
flow through you raptured,
and,
rock gently the ruptures
of faith and desire.

In the name of the Destroyer

2010-06-30T11:35:00.001-07:00

Today the forget-me-not blooms
anticipating its monsoon;
Dogs announce the advent of a restive summer;
This season, summer outsmarts spring
And monsoon is a wayward witch.

This watermelon seller wanders around the old city
Singing with a parched throated voice
Of oriental princesses bound by a curse
and of the estrangement of Nature.
City-dwellers hear his refrain
Their tastebuds tingling with a known thirst,
a desire for the here and unknown beyond..
Flesh, seeds and rind
might just quench these primitive urges.

Harlequin dance-theaters
with a twist of magpie-like flitting romances,
high on tales of raconteurs cooling off,
stealing time to smell the scents of flora and fruit:

a desert dust always mixed in the air.
No sea in sight
The (hot) earth will swallow these waterdrops…

Soundtrack for a Revolution Trailer

2010-05-27T00:46:00.000-07:00

Want to see this movie on the African American Civil Rights Movement, with great music as background score..

Chef Bora and Little Paradise :)

2010-05-27T00:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.timesnow.tv/Aromas-from-Assam---Part-1/videoshow/4345760.cms

the other

2010-05-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

Trinkets at the market-square
10-odd money changers,
One lone ATM.

White, brown, yellow,
(haha, correction please)
Intermingle and experience
In a tenuous existence.

Shrines for living gods
And a repertoire of symbols:
Drum bells, jambo, chants
Prayer beads of a turquoise color.

Refrains of a meditative melody
Giving glimpses of sensitive lives
Viewed from other quarters.

- sushmita kashyap
- 24th May, 2010

something i composed on a still standing bus. crap. but critique. it
is prose n poetry now. i should work on turning it into poetry.

omnium-gatherum

2009-11-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Krishna

The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom
And hung with veils of pearly fleece:
They died away into the gloom,
Vistas of peace—and deeper peace.

And earth and air and wave and fire
In awe and breathless silence stood;
For One who passed into their choir
Linked them in mystic brotherhood.

Twilight of amethyst, amid
Thy few strange stars that lit the heights,
Where was the secret spirit hid?
Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?

The flame of Beauty far in space—
Where rose the fire: in Thee? in Me?
Which bowed the elemental race
To adoration silently?
---George William Russell

Cat's Dream

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.
--- Pablo Neruda (Translated by Alastair Reid)

Lines to be embroidered on a Bib
(or) The Child Is Father Of The Man, But Not For Quite A While

So Thomas Edison
Never drank his medicine;
So Blackstone and Hoyle
Refused cod-liver oil;
So Sir Thomas Malory
Never heard of a calory;
So the Earl of Lennox
Murdered Rizzio without the aid of vitamins or calisthenox;
So Socrates and Plato
Ate dessert without finishing their potato;
So spinach was too spinachy
For Leonardo da Vinaci;
Well, it's all immaterial,
So eat your nice cereal,
And if you want to name your ration,
First go get a reputation.
---Ogden Nash

A Farewell

Good-bye: nay, do not grieve that it is over—
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.

Grieve not,—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yea, love and all.
Glad was the living; blessed be the dying!
Let the leaves fall.
--- Harriet Monroe

À Bas Ben Adhem

My fellow man I do not care for.
I often ask me, What's he there for?
The only answer I can find
Is, Reproduction of his kind.
If I'm supposed to swallow that,
Winnetka is my habitat.
Isn't it time to carve Hic Jacet
Above that Reproduction racket?

To make the matter more succint:
Suppose my fellow man extinct.
Why, who would not approve the plan
Save possibly my fellow man?
Yet with a politician's voice
He names himself as Nature's choice.

The finest of the human race
Are bad in figure, worse in face.
Yet just because they have two legs
And come from storks instead of eggs
They count the spacious firmament
As something to be charged and sent.

Though man created cross-town traffic,
The Daily Mirror, News and Graphic,
The pastoral fight and fighting pastor,
And Queen Marie and Lady Astor,
He hails himself with drum and fife
And bullies lower forms of life.

Not that I think much depends
On how we treat our feathered friends,
Or hold the wrinkled elephant
A nobler creature than my aunt.
It's simply that I'm sure I can
Get on without my fellow man.
---Ogden Nash

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
--- John Keats

Goody for Our Side and Your Side Too

Foreigners are people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.

When we leave the limits of the land in which
Our birth certificates sat us,
It does not mean
Just a change of scene,
But also a change of status.
The Frenchman with his fetching beard,
The Scot with his kilt and sporran,
One moment he
May a native be,
And the next may find him foreign.

There’s many a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.

Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner.

So mind your manners when a native, please,
And doubly when you visit
And between us all
A rapport may fall
Ecstatically exquisite.
One simple thought, if you have it pat,
Will eliminate the coroner:
You may be a native in your habitat,
But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner.
--- Ogden Nash

Balloons

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish--------
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.
--- Sylvia Plath

"the copy paste"

Steve Biko: revisited

2009-10-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiE6IHz6sw4

Monty Python football.. Greek and German philosophers on the field

2009-10-23T11:15:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8&feature=related

"Imperfect Archives" at 801 Projects poignantly portrays the past

2009-10-14T13:23:00.001-07:00

By Carlos Suarez De Jesus

Sitting at a work table, Nereida Garcia Ferraz hands out recipes for boniatillo con queso to a throng of strangers cramping her installation at Little Havana's 801 Projects.

For the Cuban-American artist, the traditional sweet potato dish was the type of comfort food that made the frosty Midwestern winters bearable during her youth.

"Nitza Villapol's cookbook was one of the few things my 76-year-old mother, Juana, was able to bring with us from Cuba when we came to Chicago in the '60s," Garcia Ferraz laughs. "For me, those recipes and dishes were as nourishing as a kid growing up in those brutal Chicago winters as were the theories of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault when I studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago later on."

Her work is on display in "Imperfect Archives," an all-woman group show that also includes work by Amalia Caputo, Consuelo Castañeda, Liz Cerejido, Ana Albertina Delgado, Odalis Valdivieso, Eugenia Vargas Pereira, and Angela Valella.

Garcia Ferraz, Castañeda, and Valella organized and curated the show. Another bond the participants share is that some of them recently lost their mothers, while others are coping with moms living with debilitating illnesses.

The exhibit examines the use of archives through books. For these artists, the book remains a powerful catalyst that inspires fantasy, nostalgia, and considerations of earthly and political concerns. The conceptual mishmash features installations, works on paper, photography, paintings, and video and sound pieces created during the past year.

Perhaps most remarkable is that the overarching subtext of the show reads like a fragmented codex strongly binding the women to their mothers.

The artists also stubbornly refuse to concede that books will soon go the way of the dodo or eight-track tapes.

"Books will last forever," Garcia Ferraz intones. "They are the first things we carry with us when we end relationships or when we experience different aspects of our lives. Most anyone can remember the titles of their favorite volumes that have been lost, stolen, or even chewed by their dogs."

She goes on to compare people to dog-eared tomes. "If you think of it, each of us is like a book in different clothes," she says, skidding on the banana peel of cliché. "But while each of us in the exhibit has very different lives, we are still joined by the same passions and have parallel visions at the same time."

In addition to handing out her mother's favorite recipes, Garcia Ferraz created an installation in a room she painted in a dark, tarry tone. She covered the walls with striking black-and-white photographs of the show's participants in grandiose poses as if they were literary figures from the past.

At the room's center, she sits at a table, erasing text from a book about 16th-century Italian paintings. Occasionally she pauses to add her own drawings to the volume's illustrations. Her space looks somewhat like an East German interrogation chamber and exudes a musty whiff of Cold War-era disinformation and censorship.

"I wanted to convey a sense of the lessons we learn and the lessons we lose," she says. "Miami is like the Tower of Babel. People from all over the world live here, but sometimes we lose our literature, our identity, and even a sense of place."

Garcia Ferraz, whose elderly mother suffers from advanced stages of Alzheimer's, says the exhibit is an homage to her mom.

"My mother loved to read," she sighs. "One of the things Mami still conserves is a photo book with scenes of Cuba we keep next to her bed. Although she never got to return to her homeland, she still loves those pictures. For me, what each of us has done for this show has deep roots and lots of branches touching upon many things."

At the entrance of the capacious three-story building, housing several artists' studios, Angela Valella created a sprawling collage installation out of torn book pages, photographs, postcards, and even notes and thoughts jotted on scraps of paper by her mother, Aracely Dominguez Daniel, who passed away this spring at the age of 83.

"Right before dying, she asked for a piece of paper and wrote her final note with a trembling hand," Valella says with a faltering voice. When she looked at the spidery scrawl, it read, "I'm sorry to tell you all that I've always been different than all of you."

Says the artist: "Mami was considered the weird one in her family. I didn't realize till recently how this project has been a discovery of who she was for me."

Valella says her mother was a writer who had an operatic singing voice she often used to entertain friends. "She lived in a building in Miami Beach where some of her neighbors played the piano, and they would get together and perform. When she died, she left this trove of books in her apartment that included early signed editions by Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Benedetti, and many other important writers that left me amazed."

She also left behind reams of her own writings, which have inspired Valella's installation.

For her piece, Valella tore page 47 from some of her mother's books to cover a wall. Nineteen forty-seven was the year her mother married and her lucky number, the artist explains.

She also had one of her mother's neighbors climb a boom crane and shoot bird's-eye-view pictures of her mother's home, which she has integrated into her collage. "I also underlined random passages from the book pages and was surprised to discover a narrative emerging as the piece evolved," Valella notes.

Throughout the rabbit warren of small project rooms and halls in the building, old-fangled overhead projectors beam theoretical mumbo jumbo by French philosophers onto walls. It's an intellectual nod to the deconstruction of text. But it all seems overplayed.

More interesting, though, are photographs by Eugenia Vargas Pereira, who lost her 100-year-old mother earlier this year while rushing home to Chile to be at her side. In images saturated with gorgeous crimson and azure hues, Vargas Pereira swims in a back-yard pool while holding a rare gilded edition of Dante's Inferno. The book came from the collection of Valella's mom.

Equally compelling is an untitled work by Liz Cerejido, who for many years has documented her 77-year-old mother Helida's descent into the ravages of Alzheimer's. For her take on the imperfect archive, Cerejido covered a wall in slate gray and painted phrases in chalk over it, adding a sound element with a recording of her mother's voice.

"I had my mother read words to me from flash cards I gave her before she stopped speaking two years ago. Mom is now in the final stages of her disease," Cerejido informs. "The phrases on the wall are random words I used to describe the experiences of an imaginary Cuban exile family that had very different lives than we did, but sadly that wasn't the case," the artist explains. "Instead, the words you hear in the sound element of the installation refer to how my mother lived more an existence like Penelope waiting faithfully for the return of Ulysses, or in our case, my father, who never made it here from Cuba to join us in the United States."

Although some of the works convey a deep sense of sorrow or nostalgia, none veers to the maudlin or morbid, which enhances the rhythm of the show.

Odalis Valdivieso adds some welcome humor with her sound piece, The Black Bean Audio Archive. The 30-something Venezuelan artist has worked on it for the past 11 years, collecting oral recipes of Miami's favorite legume from people across town.

"So far, I have 126 different recipes from people like my grandmother, maids, workmates, and other folks I have encountered through the years," the youngest participant boasts.

"To me, black beans are a signature dish that links Hispanics, Afro-Americans, and almost every culture in our city," she says. "Just this last week, I ate a totally new version that included malanga with the beans. They were pretty hearty and tasty."

And not unlike the contrasting recipes for frijoles negros, this exhibit, with its many disparate approaches, more than lives up to its name.
*********************************************

Angela's Archive (2009), by Angela Valella
Details:
"Imperfect Archives": Through October 30. 801 Projects, 801 SW Third Ave., Miami; 305-266-6155. Weekdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment. Exhibit closes with a book sale October 30.
Subject(s):
Imperfect Archives, 801 Projects, Miami local art

Michael Flamingo

2009-10-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Black charcoal,
Of the soft quality
Finds its way across the paper
At that instant, a metamorphosis happens
White paper turns to
unlimited canvases.

Pencils of multi-layered nibs;
Penetrations and castrations
Of multiple natures;
100 Dollars for one vasectomy
1500, if the first born is of
womb and feminine genitals.

Camel-skinned tabla-top
almost pealing at its seams;
A drummer drums his mood
For a few whiskies more
He will play on the house
The whole bloodied night.

Two plays and only
half a performance
Disposable masks
for the fluorescent stage lights
This actor has a flair
for the grotesquely satiating.

14 August’09 (02:12 hrs)

Bushfeld Snippets, South Africa

2009-10-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Wet Canvas, Gooey (Jack)fruit

2009-10-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

The overwhelmingly sweet smell
of ripe jackfruits
Fills the room;
Outside, the wind is low
but it still rains.
Humming along with the jukebox number
Already sinking into a quiet stupor;
a string of nebulous ideas
without a structured framework.
An acrylic painting, some disjointed lamps
a paintbrush dripping
of vivid colour,
and newspapers creased for the effect.
There are tags, names
to these canvasses;
a prize for the electically-inspired
voyeur,
And the constant sickening smell of ripe jackfruits
for those who can only desire.

25 June’08

Lingering...

2009-10-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

(1)
In the landscape of rebellion
I, an aspiring poet
You, a wage earner
She, a domestic help
Wait.

(2)
Images filter in
As we commence on new journeys
New gods for inspiration
The sun sets.

(3)
A new morning doesn’t bring the
Dawn --- long awaited
Harsh light tries to defy
Delusions and indifferences.

(4)
Coping with ordinary conversations
People morphing into their perceptions
A revolution gone stale
Perhaps, a metaphor will save us.

(5)
In the landscape of rebellion
I, an aspiring poet
You, a wage earner
She, a domestic help
Wait.

5.05.08

Conversations with men and witches

2009-10-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

Pardon me, I didn’t get the meaning
Of your continued silences;
Or the abstract of your long speeches.
I admit I am a little absent-minded
With a five-second attention span,
Especially when it comes to rhetoric.

There must be some way we can communicate
Some way to break this impasse;
Maybe I can read to you,
Or will you sing me a song?
Sigh! Pardon me, and my excesses
The constant drilling noise of nonsense.

A bus ride to nowhere might help
To open up clogged spaces and interrupted conversations:
This girl I shared a seat with
Became a friend, a confidante for fleeting minutes
She showed me her city and told me a story
When we departed, I still didn’t know her name.

Pardon me, yet again, for bothering you so
But these questions and conflicts are endless,
And my vivid imagination acts a disturbing catalyst
To this long night.
As the full moon stares through my window
My self leaves me and goes hunting for witches.

24.06.08

Seeking Saturation Part-2

2009-08-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

I wrote this just a while back as a letter to my childhood friend, an
artist and dreamer like me, to whom a mail was long overdue. I wished
to write in prose but i was too full of myself so..For now,I rest my case;)

Where do I begin? There is always so much to speak to you, to hear
from u, so many burdens to unload, so many more learnings to unlearn,.
where do I begin?

If I were a poet, I would sketch you a picture with my words, my
imagined metaphors of my consolidated spans of experiences and lives
lived
But I havent practised the painful art of expression too long.

If I could even half-draw like the way you dream, I would take you on
a deep long journey,
Inside my self and the many more costumes and hijazs I don, like a peace soldier
Who, hopelessly still believes in love, yet feels militant in the
warped web that human relationships manifest into.

If I was an orator, I would ask you to pay me court
To endear me with your arts and only than I would have charmed you immaculate
With the wine of verses and the minute little details of the night's excesses

But I am none of the above, ofcourse.

That's why this befits only an electronic note of fragmented nature
My heartbreak is complete, it is after all my own desire and my own
decisive frenzy
I turn towards ascetism ever much more, the inward gaze becomes
highlighted when these trappings leave me alone.
Alone by choice, at this very moment, I dont dream of inane men or
nicotine-laced postscripts
I dont even give in to gluttony's merry potluck party
I dont even sulk, nor do I attempt a fake laugh

I know more than I should, at my age,
Is that my disease?

I desire more than most women should,
And even these desires, these passions, are of not this world
Is that the heresy I commit?

I have travelled so many lands in a frenzied pace
Yet accumulated sparkling memories from every encounter
Is that what twicks your jealous soul?

I ask questions which we are still searching and formulating correct answers for
I see through your half-truths and half-loves, lived in fantastic interiors
You build to raise your kids, to showcase the good life, the stamp of
the currency
Maybe that's what you always seeked, but why do you wish to straddle me too
To your many fangled contraptions and acquired exhibitions

I am here, at my own sweet pace
I will go before it's too late.

13 August 2009.

From Untouchably Yours

2009-08-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

An insect sipped into your beer mug
Shaped for a cuppa coffee.
Your untouchable doesn’t even dare
To look up beyond your pelvic bones.
There seems to be an anarchy of sorts
Countering your fascisms and superstitions
And politics of maniac dictatorship.

These socially-sanctioned orgies
Of the hi brow and the well-heeled drives
Passions of incestuously volatile frequencies.

Godless, the gypsies who died in Aushwitz
This war now, you are told, is always fought
For your religions.

Heedlessly under-circumventing
The warnings of your tarot card reader,
You try to uncage yourself
Emerge anew
Like a slave child, like a burst of balmy rains!

You awake, you order some coffee
In your custom made cocoa mug;
Your untouchable does the honours.

00.05 hrs. 14 August 2009. Kharguli Hills, Guwahati.

2009-05-13T00:06:00.001-07:00

The eardrums buzz
With the cacophony of bottleful of cicadas.
Dusk fuses into twilight
For the birds to return home.
Mere occasions
Hold the spirit and tantalize
For acutely brief spasms.
For crying foul
The winds stroke the trees,
Gently, first
And then vigorously and cruelly
To stupendity.
Defending the ghettos that
society has come to.
Literature in many tongues
Attempt to be naïve Justicia’s pages
She, now extolled in street-side fountains!

For want of tomfoolery
And native buffoonery,
We hold our souls on mortgage.
So our futures are secure
and our pasts as obscure.
Seasons alter the mindframes
and you are you, no more.
More or less,
neither am I.

Without Notice. 19th April, 2009. (20:32 hrs)

Cultivating Fractured Identities and Spaces

2008-10-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

(By culture), I mean first of all what the anthropologists mean: the way of life of a particular people living together in one place. That culture is made visible in their arts, in their social system, in their habits and customs; in their religion. But these things added together donot constitute the culture… a culture is more than the assemblage of its arts, customs, and religious beliefs. These things all act upon each other, and fully to understand one you have to understand all.
- T.S. Eliot

To Eliot’s phrase, another element that influences culture can be added: political identity. Identity, especially for an indigenous people, becomes of paramount importance when questions of civilization versus barbarity, globalization versus local polities and self-determination as opposed to being perceived as an inherited property for nation-building, are raised.

In 1993, Samuel Huntington announced in a controversial essay in Foreign Affairs that a new phase of global history had begun. In this, “the fundamental sources of conflict” will not be primarily economic or ideological. “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.” Elaborating on this thesis at a later date, he commented that the “major differences in political and economic development among civilizations are clearly rooted in their different cultures,” and “culture and cultural identities are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world…In this new world, local politics is the politics of ethnicity; global politics is the politics of civilizations.”

One such case of cultural conflict was observed at a recently concluded cultural event in Kohima, Nagaland. Organised jointly by the Nagaland University (NU) and the Nagaland government, it was a week-long annual convention of the Society for Promotion of Classical Music and Culture Among Youth (SPIC MACAY), under the theme “A celebration of our composite heritage”. The event was marred by controversy from day one with a boycott by the Nagaland University Teachers’ Association (NUTA). The high-profile national convention was reportedly organized with the initiative of K Kannan, the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of NU. The teachers of the University decided not to participate in hosting it as a protest against the autocratic attitude of the VC who did not consult them in the decision-making process. It is alleged that the teachers have had discontent with the VC ever since he took up the job and this boycott is perceived as a culmination of the internal problems in the University.

The teachers felt that the convention did not aptly focus on the cultural and socio-political issues of Nagaland. A member of NUTA said, "If we teachers were part of the SPIC MACAY decision-making process, we would have included more elements of Naga culture in it so that people know about our rich history." He commented that the event was more an imposition of Indian culture rather than a cultural exchange as there were hardly any representation of Naga culture and tradition and such an exchange would not help the visiting delegates in getting a true perspective of Naga society. The University teachers did not want to be individually quoted but were vocal about their sentiments regarding the inappropriate timing of the convention when Nagaland continued to battle a political crisis with incessant clashes among armed opposition groups. Adding a symbolic dimension of alienation, another member of NUTA expressed that customary rituals associated with welcoming an event in Nagaland – such as blowing horns, dancing and offering Naga cuisine – did not happen in this particular cultural event.

Probing further, one realises that the root of the problem is far more complex and deep-reaching. An Indian cultural event with insignificant elements from Nagaland would be seen as an extension of what the Naga peoples would call a part of the “colonial process” that India with all its cultural politics has had to offer in the past six decades. The protest symbolically refers to a whole history of India’s engagement with the Naga peoples where a rich past is often obliterated in the rhetoric of assimilating Nagaland with the Indian mainland. In the inaugural function of the convention, the Chief Guest, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Minister of Development of North Eastern Region and Panchayati Raj, spoke about the state's troubled history and the identities of alienation eloquently, playing straight to the gallery.

Aiyar said that words like ‘alienation’ and ‘neglect’ earlier associated with Nagaland were ‘outdated’ now as Northeastern India has been integrated with the mainland. He spoke of the various tribes in Nagaland and its fascinating geography even as it shared borders with Myanmar (Burma). He made a special mention of Tuensang district and of the houses there where the front gate faced India and the backyard opened to Burma. But nowhere in this rhetoric is mentioned a positive step towards ending the political crisis of Nagaland or the fact that the roads leading to Tuensang and beyond are virtually un-navigable. Travelling a stretch of 85 kilometres from Mokokchung to Tuensang takes nearly six hours on roads that are filled with potholes and signs saying “Roads are a Symbol of National Development”. A visit by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil on May 15 to Kohima, during the clashes among the armed opposition groups, can be brought into perspective in this context. Patil conveyed the message in no uncertain terms that law and order is a state subject and that the state government needs to handle the situation with a firm hand. Apart from this, the minister did not deliberate on anything related to the violent events that are a part of the larger political crisis that Nagaland faces.

The peace process with the armed opposition groups and a resolution of the Naga political question face similar ambiguous approaches from the Government of India resulting in a gradual but visible deterioration in the political situation. These are the reasons why after more than five decades of fighting for self-determination, the Nagas still find themselves in a catch-22 situation so far as the Indian State is concerned. Most speakers at the event emphasised on 16 different tribes living in Nagaland ignoring the many more tribes spread over other Naga-inhabited areas who claim a shared political and cultural heritage. These are issues crucial to the political debate associated with Nagaland and policymakers responsible for addressing these conveniently circumvent with rhetoric of development and progress.

For the Nagas, culture is very intricately linked to history, which finds form in their stories, symbols and songs and a mere showcasing of this heritage arguably denies justice to this history and culture. Most people in Nagaland seemed tired of what they call a “repetitive exotification” of their culture. Dolly Kikon, a researcher from Nagaland, has previously commented on this phenomenon where the political culture of indigenous people like the Nagas is criticized as backward-looking and narrow in globalised times. “Culture is being downsized to tourism, Discovery Channel programmes and dance troupes,” she expressed. This misplaced adulation was evident in a colourful showcase of Northeastern ethnic dances that followed the inaugural speeches in the convention: Thangta, Pung Cholam of Manipur, Rikhampada of Arunachal Pradesh, Wangala dance of Meghalaya, a performance by Naga Sumi tribe, Bihu and Conch of Assam, to mention a few. These dances were a riot of colour and intricate jewellery. Each performance was unique in its presentation and form - while a Tripuri dance showcased a balancing act, a Naga war dance reflected the passions of that particular tribe, and the fusion dance of the artists in the end was a vibrant kaleidoscope of Northeastern indigenous cultures. This choreography of cultures, however, was not properly introduced nor was the significance of the war dances established for the understanding of the outsiders.
It is worth mentioning here that some more artists from the region who had come to perform did not get a chance due to the rigid time structure which had slots marked for artists coming from other parts of India.

Despite the NUTA protest, students from other districts of Nagaland came to represent their colleges in the SPIC MACAY convention. Ms Jamir, a student from Mokokchung, said, “We have learnt a lot these few days about different cultures and it has been a good experience. An organisation of international standing like SPIC MACAY coming down to our state is an honour. But the food has not been Naga dishes, which is a disappointment. And there should have been some Naga dances also which I haven’t seen so far.”

Some cultural observers from within the state commenting on the teachers’ protest said that the teachers are trying to ruffle up the University issue and washing their “dirty linen in public”. They welcomed SPIC MACAY’s initiative and hoped that there will be more representation of Northeast culture in SPIC MACAY’s events in other parts of India from now onwards. But one can hardly be optimistic when Naga art and culture isn’t represented adequately in the host state of this year’s convention. The nearly 800 participants from all over India who came for the event left Kohima as ignorant about the culture of Naga peoples as they were when they arrived, let alone politics and history. At the same time, some people expressed the view that six days was too short a time to understand and capture Naga culture and any future cultural event should be conducted for a longer duration of time where participants can learn from Naga artists and craftsmen.

There are arguments and there are arguments. But people feel that it does not undermine the issue of continuous political and cultural alienation and hegemonic approach. One could clearly see the divide here. On the one hand it was the State institutions represented by the organisers, and as a whole representing India and Indian-ness that the Naga peoples have been in conflict with for more than five decades. On the other hand was a protest that symbolically represented resentment against an indifferent attitude of the State with all its agencies and tools towards the aspirations of the peoples of Nagaland. At a time when the desire for peace is evident in the larger voice of Nagaland, this event could have been a symbolic step towards taking cognisance of the political question in Nagaland, if not addressing it directly. Culture can be an essential part of peace-building where cultural exchanges can shape understanding and build tolerance. Being multilayered, culture cannot be classified into a straitjacket of definitions, but by virtue of being inclusive it can be used in various ways to work towards peace.

- Sushmita Kashyap

written sometime in June 2008, after covering an event.
PS- My ideas and thoughts are constantly evolving. I dont agree with certain things I have written here, but I think the essentials are still very relevant.

Postscript.

2008-10-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

Between the worlds we straddle, there is always comic relief and some conflict. But what is this peculiar trait of violence seizing everyone's collective imagination at the same time? People hacking each other to death as the psychotic death dance rages through districts, burning houses and scathing deep in collective memories: words cant do much, except perhaps eloquently narrate these gory details. Mostly writing is an elixir, a cognitive process but sometimes it feels like a mockery, of all that still happens in my land and others that you might know of. Sitting on a rooftop in Pondicherry, trying to muse aloud and rephrasing the phrase: "I am not Hamlet, This is not my play anymore", I dont know what triggers mass hysteria and communal hatred like it does right now in a stretch of land that I used to pass everytime I went to see my folks from the mainland.

Even as I write, friends make frenetic phonecalls to friends in Kyrgystan as news of a 6.8 Richter scale earthquake killing 70 people there filter in. And these same friends grapple with the violence unfolding in BTC in Assam, more specifically Udalguri, Darrang and Baksa. A conflict over resources probally and a suspicion of "the other" led to the Bodos and Muslims from Bangladesh hacking ecah other to death. But I did rather not categorise because though identity is very important, peoples lives are so much more that their identities or their mass understandings. A friend deals with the helplessness of his news producer friend being shot dead in the Indian capital with no leads yet to the thrilling "breaking news" story. And he still goes out to the field and reports from Assam, talks to the mob, takes a picture as he witnesses hatreds from totally new angles and dimensions.

And I sit here. I feel helpless and mad in my head. I recite poetries I know, I listen to the muezzin's call, I write post cards and walk all the way down along the canal to my apartment, talking to dogs, children and my alter ego. I try to find some relief in figures and movements and art. But there is no hiding away. One self wants to be back home, to my pa, who spoke to me today saying bittering that his land has no future, the questionmark in his sentence giving away his absolute helpless uncertainity about how his beautiful land and people came to this. Another self wants to go away, as usual, far far away, from this madness and civilisation.

How many madnesses should I deal in one life- within and without? And I aspire to work on areas in Peace and Conflict and another one says, you peaceniks are a bunch of loose jokers. I get angry and I call him arrogant, ignorant even. But I wish I could prove him wrong. I wish I could show him that evil isnt inherent but goodness is. Why does the world prove me wrong everytime?

In solidarity to all the people I know and am yet to know who still havent given up on humanity (sounds like rhetoric to me).

2008-09-28T11:15:00.001-07:00

Parsely, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,
A desire patiently waits at my footsteps
As I breathe in the moment.
Love, an emotion so potent
And self-sustaining
It bares free of conventional
Obstacles.
A guitar gently strings on
The kaleidoscopic ride through the galazies
While I admire the shining star.
Rain-showers and sounds
Of the tapering rain.

Time and space melt away
Fluidity takes its course.
20.09.08. auroville-rooftop

Featherglo’
Around lamp shades
And rooftops of tree trunks
Obscure thoughts
Surrounds the humour
And a twinkle in your eyes
From one moment to the next.

Silk and cotton dresses
narrate a story
Of vibrant ideals
and life in transition;
One object to your next
A possibility flutters
We’re living in
the Bohemian Dream.

Ying and the Yang

2008-08-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

The skies opened up

And all the chaos became still

Time stopped

Yet things moved

Like metaphysics

And imagery-imaginative sessions

About physical circumstances resumed.

Consumerist cultures stick around

This sordid material existence;

I heard of Nietzsche’s insanity

And physical weaknesses

What did Zarathustra spoke

I am yet to know

Yet to delve on the finer aspects

Of cosmic energy.

-Ying and the Yang

Discources

2008-07-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

A day marked by momentum,

A desire, a hunger,

Of the things that don’t exist.

White wash on empty walls

Paint, grease, paper

Only gardens, no people.

Filter coffee brewing

Girls talk away

The sun sinks unobtrusively.

Black ink

And the Concordia discordia around

The table is a treasure house of knick-knacks.

Empty unwashed glasses

The mood’s turbulent

Is there some elixir?

Playing king and queen

No one intrudes

No one observes their play.

Learning the gears and brakes

Wanting to fly.

Subjects and scrutinizers

Accolades to the smooth-talker.

And this, an unfinished exercise.

-sushmita kashyap (28.03.08/ 16.05hrs)

living, travelling, dreaming.

2008-07-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is an old post, probally written a month back. I was in Kohima these last few days covering an event. Just got back. Need to write something so will chit chat sometime when it's done. Meanwhile here eet ess.

This last month(May-June 2008, actually) has been a whirlwind of a travel but it has been work and whole lot of fun too. As you probally know, I am treading the freelancer path from May onwards. There is a heady feeling about working at my space and time but yeah discipline is important, and i can hardly say that I am a disciplined person. Assignments and projects are coming in but having no access to mails this month, I have a backlog of work which is probally too late now to wrap up. Andthe heat's maddening these last 3 days here and I havent been feeling too well.

Anyways, this film shoot I had gone to took us all over Northeast.First thru Nagaland, Manipur to Moreh right next to the Burma border.By far the highlight of the whole trip. Moreh is like mini-India, ppl from all over. The Tamils are supposed to be the original settlers and traders (they came from Burma when non Burmese people were asked to evict in 1963-64) though this claim is debated and the Kukis and Nagas also lay an allegiance to the land. Supposedly, some of the mostdangerous underground outfits inhabit the hills around Moreh and theKuki-Naga clashes happen periodically.

But the most colorful images are those of the Namphalong market on theBurmese side. Man, the stuff is real cheap (though i could hardly shop, what with running about with a still camera and other equipmentsand radio recorders etc..and the heat is of a killer oven kind really)and you get everything from crockery to electronic items, to tiger beer at darn cheap rates to watermelons, etc. We did pass over to Tamu and Nassif (the director and a dear friend) and Kazu (the host of the travel docu and my housemate) posed alternately as a driver and a press photographer and accompanied the Chambers of Commerce guys tothe other side as part of a aid relief programe for Nargis cyclone victims. I strolled about Tamu town (had to leave cell fones and IDcards at entry gate) wearing a big circular cane hat with imprinted flowers, sipping mineral water, looking the proverbial tourist. We had 2 friends from Manipur who accompanied us so they helped on the communication part. There are many Burmese Nepalis in Tamu and was warm chatting with them. The town has a pretty face, with clean tiledroads and cute wooden houses. and the women are pretty charming too;)

Agartala-Bangladesh was allright though I just couldnt like Agartala much. And the trip to Bodoland was good fun too. Gelephu in Bhutan has a very provincial look to it but it is a very disciplined lil town andthe people are really hospitable. The proprietor of the restaurant we lunched at (we hogged on beef momos, pork chilly, rice etc) gifted each of the film unit a miniature bottle of alcohol with a Made in Bhutan stamp as a souvenir. Muchos gracias, i say;p

And Kohima was an exprience, as always. A visit to the warrior village of Khonoma on a rainy day made the trip complete. Just that my brew got spoilt! More about that laters.

Till than, adios and warmth!
Sukaphismo-sushimo;)

Identities

2008-03-26T23:47:00.000-07:00

Lines,

drawn everywhere

on this map.

And every other.

Lines,

become entities

and identities.

i cease to exist.

Lines,

become fate

and religions;

The trees and rivers

are not free.

The margins,

the marks,

the signs on the doorpost,

those uniforms, those bamboo toy rifles

and filling personal information on a form.

Captivated, suffocated,

smothered by ourselves.

-sushmita kashyap (20.34 hrs. 25march 08) Identities

The concept of borders, the spaces and times involved in building one, have always enigmated philosophers and sociologists at large. In our post colonial set up, the invisible lines on the margins of land has more than ever taunted us-urged us to realize ourselves as peoples and races and civilizations. But words like “ethnic” and “tribal”, that the world at large uses to define indigenous populations and civilizations reveal so little and yet camouflage such wide worlds.

(The species has been harsh on one another- too many excesses, the ants would say. Community building, that word’s such a joke; in our more civilized (/less barbaric) and comfortable-technology generations. The ants can teach us some community building, that reminds me!)

The idea of a country, regardless of its size, without the compulsions of the harsh intrusions of development, is so liberating. So utopian also. Than maybe we will understand ethnicity and people-their lives, their desires, their habits and their workings, their gods, cultures and loyalties.

-sushmita kashyap. 25march 08

Gift

2008-01-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

There is a veil

And you will not humor me

The suspense is

Like a zillion seconds

Ticking in my head

Crowding my sensibilities.

There is pain, remorse and desire

For a million different worlds

For the clouds to embrace me

And make me part of them.

These mementoes, souvenirs

What purpose do they serve?

The nature of this longing

Is sinister.

The mist that forms shapes

Outside

Show me vague structures

I cannot fathom them

But I finger the water

The cold breath of a winter

That took too long in coming.

The veil still pervades my understanding

And curious unbelongingness

The triviality of the occasion

Stings and nags the receiver.

Open-ended are these conversations

Without meaning or substance.

Why cant you hold the sand

So tight so tight

That I might suffocate in it

That I might drown myself

In the acute nature of this gift.

So that I’m here no more

And than you will cease to exist

All dimensions will take all shapes

Mists, veils and acronyms on paper.

6.21pm. 9.1.08

a mail i probally sent most of you

2007-12-27T05:02:00.000-08:00

ps- I know I know we all so hate mass mailers but please bear with me (that's the n-th time im saying this yeah?:p). Im calculating calculating-time, pace, space. I promise to mail moe personalised mails once m done (for now, the personal can wait)

Hi folks,

Howss it going? Me been hopping around the whole place these last few weeks. last 3 months have been an overload of things and needed to get away for a while. So Deli-Pushkar-Deli and than Manesar, Gurgaon for a Strategy meet to start off the first official liberal youth forum of India. those 3 days of brainstorming and agreeing and disagreeing were grueling but finally we came up with a concrete plan and also a drafting committee to form a definitive charter. once that's done (should be over in 3 months time), I will post u a note if anyone is interested in being part of the network.
As of now, here's just a link you folks can que into. http://www.asianborderlands.net
From January 16-19 2008, there will be an international conference in
Guwahati (And spread over some other states too) titled: Northeast
India and its transnational neighbours. essentially we will be
focussing on borders and the networks that exist around such areas-
issues like conflict, livelihood, policies wrt this area will be
deliberated upon by scholars from all over- Oxford, uNIV OF aMSTERDAM,
IIT, etc. Panos is collaborating for the non-academic event and right
now im just going bersek organisng and collating documentaries,
theatre groups, artists etc.

And yes, there's Guwahati FOF (Well, im co-ordinating the Liberal youth forum in Northeast but lets take it slow, step by step is the motto here) too. and all the ideas playing in my
brain-endless phone conversations with kripal (another coi-ordinator)as to how to go about it
(mr. ranjan has done the houdini on us but he;s super energetic when
it comes to the real work). I have been finding out about other youth
groups in the region and areas we can work on.
Will send you guys a structured mail once am thru with this backlog.
I might be offline from 27Dec-1st Jan so i did really appreciate if
someone smses me or something if any imp mails are exchanged.

hAVE a terrific year ahead. and though Modi has won (shucks i wanted to avoid being political here but what are we if not the sum of our existences and consciousness) lets not stop dissenting just because the votebank says we r a minority!

Cheers till next time than,

Sush

Thanks to Democracy and Barbarity!!

2007-11-26T02:50:00.001-08:00

Though i have not much regard for vicarious communication mediums like chats and emails, i think they are a fascinating place to be. Today my Gtalk message was: first, "the contours of the chasm between Assamese subnationalism and pan-Indianism." second, a little more subversive and callous probally, "the whole concept of India is a big joke, a shameful failure". But im angry, have been angry and agitated since the Dispur incident on Saturday. I have to write something about it to let out that anger. But for the moment, this is what a right wing friend mailed on redaing my Gtalk status message.

I read ur anti-india status msg and i think it was really shameful on ur part

today u want assam to be 'freed' from India but does assam really desrve it....

\http://www.ibnlive.com/news/guwahati-residents-strip-beat-up-adivasi-women/53043-3.html

and whr will that end tommow u may ask guwahati to be a free state and then someone would come around

and say that pan bazar shud be an independent country

I wrote back just now in a rush, while shuttling between the edit table (am working on a documentary on migration and labour equations in Central Asia after the break up on the USSR) and my comp. I know what i will paste here might sound rash and hurried but whatever it is, it is definitely not fabricated.

hi u,

well, im not ashamed of how i feel and what i say though i might not be licensed to say that. and talking about all the stuff from mainland India is all fine and you dont really have to send me an IBN live url to check what is going on in Assam. i have been and will be actively a part of the developments of the shameful horrendous mob riot that took place near Dispur (the administrative capital of Assam) in broad daylight. Im ashamed as an Assamese and very agitated. A curfew was announced in many areas following the riot. But that same eve at 7.30 pm we called a meeting, Assamese civil society representatives if u please (though i still feel that a couple of NGOs, intellectuals and indigenous groups donot represent any civil society unless the people proactively take a step) and passed a resolution around 9. 30pm./ we have seen how the national and local media have portrayed the whole incident giving it hues and images of various orders, and instead of controlling the situation, giving fire to this delicate symbiotic relationship between the tea garden workers and the other people. and yes what happened that day was essentially a class thing. what the local residents did was try to suppress an identity that is as much part of Assam as anything else. and now the Jharkhand govt is trying to gain political mileage outta it. So there, am not throwing dirt at India (anti India msg u said). i hold myself responsible for the sorry state of our nation as well as my fellow citizens. and like i said, you donot know the politics of the Northeast. anyways, the Centre is busy trying to convince everyone that we r a homogenous species. and man, we r amazingly heterogenous. so the idea of a nation state is something that needs to be studied and critiqued. a federation mite b an alternative. i am not too sure. m not talking of independence without the shite that goes along with it. but i am saying, it's time we started discussing alternatives!

I hope you understand me a lil better now.

and i will probably write something on the incident coz only than this anger will subside, this helpless feeling swelling inside me. i heard that phrase twice the other day from eye witnesses "ppl killed each other like cats and dogs". wow. all for violence are we?! there's Modi in Gujarat savagely eliminating an entire breed of people, there's bomb blasts in UP coz nobody cares, Nazification of this country had long begun. the crevices are just starting to get wider.

Take care and think about it.

Fate-igued!

2007-11-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

These last three months or so have been a whirlwind of insane activity, people, work, travel and herbs that elevate the less mundane waking hours. This last one week I decided to grace my shack with my solitude and OCD. There has been conflict. And very many contradictions. Lately, I have felt pulled to the very last vestiges of my "sheer energy" by folks and peers. I maintain it all very well, most of the time. But sometimes a voice inside talks to me (am i schizo?) and tells me to go away, far far away. And take it from there. Tiredness is a state of mind, I presume, if you dont add the physical drudgery and the constant swirling white noise in the brain. But than I get emotionally haggard at times and than familiarity has this twisted way of revealing new things, trying to precede what lies in the vague future. Astrologers and tarot card readers act a savvy catalyst to all wanting to hear and evade the impediments set by Fate (harrowed fate that!). And we become mere puppets in this orgasmic understanding of divinity's ways! haha
Man, if i start on those lines now, i can possibly go on for an hour, applying logic and common sense to wallet-pinching astronomically priced gem stones.

I am half mad, so they say. Now, who are these "they"? I probally dont even know how they look like or what their last names are. But am i irreverant to speak thus, about divinity's camouflaged way! (Hats off to Divinity and the sundry rituals that go along with the whol brouhaha).

AS for me, I guess surviving is an art i have learnt the hard way but learnt it proper. And if my fate decides to play spoilsport, i will play along and probally let all things take their own time to reveal their worth to me.

There is conflict, contradiction but there is also endurance and beauty!

So long than.

Presenting Radio Clash I

2007-10-31T03:23:00.000-07:00

On Photography

Aspirations have different manifestations. And some manifestations give birth to creative license. What exactly is creative license? And who do we define as an artist in a world of people trying to break away from the clichéd forms of entertainment and livelihood to express a more primitive urge. The urge to create, give form and to share this passion with peers and critics.

Photography is an artistic medium that lends a definitive shape to viscous images that otherwise get lost as our eyes move away to admire and analyse other issues. How do we suspend this animated display of life, color, people, culture and places? The camera becomes a sort of heightened metaphor through which we can freeze these very many details of the world that stretches before our physical selves and immediate environment.

I am no photographer but I am passionate about the medium and slowly picking up the nitty gritties of the trade. The lens fascinates me though I hesitate to give free play to all that I view and perceive, and perception is so essential to everything I see and internalize. Because perception adds meaning and a content to the otherwise hazy cloud of thoughts that constantly flow in my veins.

Travelling has been a passion for as long as I can remember. Give me an adventure, a journey and I will be game. The sights and sounds, the smells and shades, life in motion and fractured beginnings and endings! The lessons of unlearning and the search for cognition through conflict, error and inertia.

And that’s where the camera becomes a mate- a mute renderer of all things plausible, mundane or avant garde.

10 oct, 2007. 18.36hrs

On Writing

All things reveal themselves to me as if I am a conspirer in the vast scheme of things that constitute what is chaos theory today. I feel and I know, I touch and I feel, I write but than again, what do I write? Writing has to be a consistent endeavour. To rephrase Samuel Johnson's words, An amateur, Sir, should keep his writing in constant repair. Scrutinize, abuse, critique and compose like a madman. Gibberish is gibberish because we understand the frivolity of the whole text, while we read through. But any exercise in attempting a piece of writing, gibberish or otherwise, should not be futile. Writing a page every morning, is it so difficult? I ask myself. But that was a rhetorical query I suppose. So many things to express and yet I fall short of proper words and shy away in the veil of metaphors that might make sense to me but what is writing if no one reads it, attempts to reach his own meanings and than finally delivers his verdict and tosses it away. Well, the esteemed reader might even save the article of writing to read, re-read again at his own pace. But I come back to square one again. What is the point of endlessly cribbing about the paucity of time and the mundane nature of a comfortable life when I can cry out in words, release myself from all that binds me and fellow human beings? I might not be doing much at all but at least, I will have a reference point to come back to when I question all that I have been taught to accept.

The search proceeds…

10.10.07, 18.48hrs

A workshop of five days on TV Training for young journalists of the Northeast region (that bloody clichéd definition again!). and it’s intensive, grueling, information-overload and than some more. Per diems and cocktail dinners, that’s what fascinates some of them. While others try to unlearn and yet cant resolve the conflict that thinking individuals experience in short, spastic bursts of restlessness. I go through the motions of the first three days with a spring in my step though occasionally my eyes burn, my back hurts and I catch the flu. I keep to myself on certain hours and than again, I go wild with a forgotten vibrancy at moments that catch me unawares too. And the creative energy within me keeps pestering me, driving my mind loco and compelling me to seek out my own moments of white noise.

I try to channelize my stream of consciousness. Ah, consciousness! The bane of human beings. And I scoff at established notions of feminity and folks think I am just a rebel without a cause. I wish I could explain them about all the colors I see and all the ideas that fool around in my head as I sit on the pot blankly gazing at the white tiled wall in front of me. I wish I could debate libertarianism and Dadaism with some like minded drifter. I wish I could be articulate enough to discuss and question political ideals. But some things have to wait and some things are more private ofcourse. And yes, prince charming, I never was searching for u. I am just dreaming a living dream. This life has never been enough ever, has it now?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"To me the only success, the only greatness, is immortality." - James

Dean, quoted in James Dean: The Mutant King, by David Dalton ( well indeed! Haha)

Air conditioned hospitals and heart surgeons with multiple degrees from fancy universities eloquently spell out the many benefits of a long life. Who the fuck wants a long life now!!! I remember the debates I had with my pa about smoking. He tried to reason it out with me. And I listlessly said, “Health is dispensable”. I don’t hold the same views today. You see, I learn from moment to moment and though I have always been an existentialist I like to see the larger picture and the larger picture doesn’t look so bleak (no thanks to doomsday prophets). And I don’t realy care about many things, many things that make life worthwhile I guess. But the things I care about, I feel too passionately and as I wait for a proper understanding for essentials, I still think pride isn’t a bad thing. As long as it hurts no one else. And as long as I am still open to exploration. Who wants to buy immortality when mortality can be so multifaceted and revealing.

10.10.07. 19.20 hrs

FROM THE HEIGHTS

2007-07-19T04:52:00.000-07:00


           By F W Nietzsche

      Translated by L A Magnus


                 1.

MIDDAY of Life! Oh, season of delight!
                My summer's park!
Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark--
I peer for friends, am ready day and night,--
Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right!

                 2.

Is not the glacier's grey today for you
                   Rose-garlanded?
The brooklet seeks you, wind, cloud, with longing thread
And thrust themselves yet higher to the blue,
To spy for you from farthest eagle's view.

                 3.

My table was spread out for you on high--
                Who dwelleth so
Star-near, so near the grisly pit below?--
My realm--what realm hath wider boundary?
My honey--who hath sipped its fragrancy?

                 4.

Friends, ye are there! Woe me,--yet I am not
                  He whom ye seek?
Ye stare and stop--better your wrath could speak!
I am not I? Hand, gait, face, changed? And what
I am, to you my friends, now am I not?

                 5.

Am I an other? Strange am I to Me?
                Yet from Me sprung?
A wrestler, by himself too oft self-wrung?
Hindering too oft my own self's potency,
Wounded and hampered by self-victory?

                 6.

I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There
               I learned to dwell
Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell,
And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer?
Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare?

                 7.

Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o'er
                With love and fear!
Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne'er live here.
Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur,
A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar.

                 8.

An evil huntsman was I? See how taut
              My bow was bent!
Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent--
Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught,
Perilous as none.--Have yon safe home ye sought!

                 9.

Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;--
               Strong was thy hope;
Unto new friends thy portals widely ope,
Let old ones be. Bid memory depart!
Wast thou young then, now--better young thou art!

                 10.

What linked us once together, one hope's tie--
              (Who now doth con
Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)--
Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy
To touch--like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry.

                 11.

Oh! Friends no more! They are--what name for those?--
               Friends' phantom-flight
Knocking at my heart's window-pane at night,
Gazing on me, that speaks "We were" and goes,--
Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose!

                 12.

Pinings of youth that might not understand!
                 For which I pined,
Which I deemed changed with me, kin of my kind:
But they grew old, and thus were doomed and banned:
None but new kith are native of my land!

                 13.

Midday of life! My second youth's delight!
                 My summer's park!
Unrestful joy to long, to lurk, to hark!
I peer for friends!--am ready day and night,
For my new friends. Come! Come! The time is right!

                 14.

This song is done,--the sweet sad cry of rue
                 Sang out its end;
A wizard wrought it, he the timely friend,
The midday-friend,--no, do not ask me who;
At midday 'twas, when one became as two.

                 15.

We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne,
                Our aims self-same:
The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came!
The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn,
And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn.

pdf and some political thoughts

2007-07-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I have been having some interesting conversations with Sanjib Baruah
these last few days regarding NE borderlands and South Asia and the
political discourses involved in it. Though i am still an amateur
regarding these matters, i just felt like sharing whatever i have got
here.

I am passing on this pdf more as a literary interest so you may choose
to agree or disagree with the author's views and also do frwd me your
views. would love to carry on the conversation from there.

Godspeed till next time than.

and keep the mails coming

Another thing....a friend i sent this pdf to questioned me about
copyright et al...let me assure you that Dr Baruah would be glad if
his book can generate some sorta debate and talk on the issues and
ideas involved. and he knows that m fwrdin the same to some friends
and family.

Also, even i havent read the entire book as yet...just browsed thru a
few pages of the hard copy till now...

Ciao folks

http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/search-for-publications/browse-alphabetic-list-of-titles/?class_call=view&pub_ID=2173&mode=view

2007-07-11T05:31:00.001-07:00

Pink plastic

The name comes

to me

again.

The restaurants

and the talks

on the sidewalks;

clear skies

and dazed out dreams.

It reminds me of

perfumed clothes

and serendity,

but than

serendity happens even now

and so often.

(part two)

A story of

the hermit and crab

i saw in a

dream once;

this thing called

real life

is too funny,

the whole business of living.

Polemical dilemma

This.

Aah,

two mere words

and very many musings

later.

An impasse.

9.07.07 (an irritably restless evening…after a long day running around but being practically jobless..but the muse doesn’t humor me too often as is evident by the prosaicness of this shite I pass on as witing)

l'art pour l'art

2007-07-11T03:18:00.000-07:00

a friend asked me to define glass just the other day. she works on glass, wire, chrome, etc to come up with unusual and unconventional stuff. i still dont know much about what she does though she has sent me some pictures of her designs and art.
i thought i will personalise this space with the many conversations i have with people from all over the place and from all walks of life, doing their own beautiful and simple things.

now, glass...how would i define it?..umm..quite a difficult query...an
"entity" that is semi liquid, semi solid...malleable in molten state
but brittle whn solid...open to interpretations and myriad
designing...a mirror, nah, a reflecting surface maybe..where images
are rendered as real but is twice removed from reality..
well guess im rambling....u fill me in...
mind's spaced out at work!!!

teme abt ur stuff...and how u go about working on it?

love,
tiki

She writes:

I don't know.
Never made money direct from art that's what you asked.
but work is to spend sometime honestly with a problem,
many people working with instalations deal with glass, broken , mirrowed, and all you said…
I like what you wrot, not so delirious, finding meanings and what is not there.

Art is never POUR, is just art.
bijou.
Sim.

Moi:

i dont much care about the money part as long as one has enough to live a normal life..if u know what i mean! and what are these installlations..can u plz elaborate..and how did u get into the nitty gritties of it?
and art is for the sake of art...when we talk of aesthetic inclinations and the sorts

godspeed.
tiki

and forced homogenisation continues

2007-07-11T03:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070710/asp/frontpage/story_8039584.asp

Delhi 'profiles' to protect
- Police booklet for Northeast students betrays prejudices
NISHIT DHOLABHAI

New Delhi, July 9: A strange tribe has Delhi police worried. Their women don't cover up enough, they mix with no one and, officers say, their food smells so awful that it is a threat to public order.

The police have now printed a booklet full of well-meaning advice that should help these men and women blend into Delhi society despite the handicap of their "foreign" features.

What has triggered outraged cries of "social profiling" is that this group is made up solely of people from India's Northeast.

West Delhi police, who issued the booklet titled Security Tips for Northeast Students/Visitors in Delhi last month, are now accused of treating these Indians from the hill states as if they were aliens from Timbucktoo.

"Dress code: When in rooms do as Roman does," the police's immortal prose tells the 45,000-odd Northeasterners living in and around the capital.

"Revealing dress be avoided. Avoid lonely road/bylane when dressed scantily. Dress according to sensitivity of the local populace," it adds.

As for food habits, "bamboo shoot, Akhuni and other smelly dishes should be prepared without creating ruckus in neighbourhood".

Bamboo shoots feature in the cuisines of most of the northeastern states while the akhuni, made from fermented soya bean, is a Naga staple.

Grace Guite, president of the Paite Students' Organisation in Delhi, said the booklet implied that women from the region had "loose morals".

She added that while food habits should be a personal affair, the reference to "ruckus in the neighbourhood" only showed how unsafe the capital was for anyone.

More so for women students from the Northeast. After two of them were raped in May-June 2005, fellow students had said the city's habit of viewing people from the region as aliens led to their being segregated and harassed, and to the girls being seen as easy prey.

The introduction to the booklet, titled "Words to Seven Sisters (the seven northeastern states)", has been written by the deputy commissioner (West Delhi), Robin Hibu, an IPS officer who is himself from the Northeast.

It refers to one of the rapes: "A proud father sent his only daughter in Delhi to make her IAS/IPS but she returned back as drug addict, promising boy landed into police case for drunken brawl, late night parties with loud music landed six youngsters into police case, revealing dressed up parties lass was molested and thrown out from moving vehicle badly bruised after being outraged…."

According to Guite, this suggests the police think only women from the Northeast are unsafe in Delhi.

Hibu, officer in charge of co-ordinating on Northeast issues, denies the charge of social profiling. He insists that visitors from the Northeast do not interact enough with the local population and blames this on a language barrier and the visitors' "features akin to neighbouring countries".

JNU researcher Malem Ningthouja said, "This is called 'othering', identifying them as a separate group…. The police (think they) are civilising the people from the Northeast."

Hibu has no time for such criticism. "I want emotional and patriotic integration," he said. "It's only because of a handful of people and NGOs back home that they feel separate."

People from the region, who have "different sensibilities", need to be told about Delhi, most of which "is still orthodox", he argued. He agreed that there was also a need to educate Delhi residents about the Northeast.

The booklet also has useful tips for any visitor to Delhi, advising them on personal safety and prevention of break-ins, muggings and vehicle theft. The booklets have been sent to college principals, Church leaders, MPs and the various state houses.

END

i guess this booklet is another chain of regressive and "clamping down" events..ye all, lets all become Ionesco's rhinoceroses and forget our collective memories as human beings!! this new regulation disgusted me a lot so i thought i did send it out...i wanna swear man!!

the replies i got...

Bro: What’s your opinion?
moi: i think it's wrong..and morally degrading to people belonging to the northeastern part of India..for that matter, i think i dont agree with the "dismissal" classification of the 7 states in the region as Northeast for that matter, as we are all differnt with differnt lifestyles and cultures etc.
and i guess we both know how the Dilliwallas look at the northeast...so..well, i just dint like the report as i said it today..itw as the main news in Telegraph...shocking how the Northern end of India defines everything wrt itself and its own lived realities.
what abt u? whats ur view....mine is amateurish but u asked for it nevertheless.
Bro:I understand that at a first view it seems definitely very outrageous. However, they could have instead put it up in a different way instead of defining it as north easterns etc. But I am a bit confused. Might take some time to have a concrete opinion. But this sentence is really taking my interest “A strange tribe has Delhi police worried. Their women don't cover up enough, they mix with no one and, officers say, their food smells so awful that it is a threat to public order.”

I am surprised how a qualified journalist could pick up words and sentences like these. This delineates the entire north east from the rest of India… And people ask why many north easterns do not consider themselves Indians. The article talks about “foreign” features. Well who is to decide what is foreign in India, a country with so many diverse features.

I understand that the whole idea of this segregation is not very good on the part of the administration. But they are doing it for a reason. But the article is meant to generate public interest. They could have been a bit more sober of course without avoiding the actual facts.
What do u say?

And than one of my non-violent Assamese partners got agitated while he read the report in Delhi..

you kidding me ya. fuck what the hell is the world coming to??? this is so fucking disgusting. i need a tank to blow up this city.

And today, another strong woman i know talked to me of protests and subversion...

Im game, i say.

2007-07-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QC2Sp30-cHg/RpSQNGUV42I/AAAAAAAAAAY/XbNt1YduROo/s320/DSC00852.JPG

2007-07-11T00:50:00.001-07:00

and since im lazy..

2007-07-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

I have made a space which i hope to use whenever the restless spirit needs to explore and to direct all the energies into a disciplined set-up of attempting things, evaluating ideas, etcetc. And because i have nothing better to say at the moment though i wish i could go on and on.. here are some lyrics to keep my boredom at bay.

Artist: Lyrics
Song: La Vie Boheme Lyrics

Cafe Owner:
No please no
Not tonight please no
Mister- Can't you go-
Not tonight- Can't have a scene

ROGER
What?

Cafe Owner:
Go, please go;
You- Hello sir
I said no
Improtant customer

MARK
What am I- Just a blur?

Cafe Owner:
You sit all night -You never buy!

MARK
That's a lie - That's a lie
I had a tea the other day

Cafe Owner:
You couldn't pay

MARK
Oh yeah

COLLINS
Benjamin Coffin III- Here?

Cafe Owner:
Oh no!

ALL
Wine and beer!

MAUREEN
The enemy of Avenue A
We'll stay

Cafe Owner:
Oiy Vey!

COLLINS
What brings a Mogul in his own mind to the Life Cafe?

BENNY
I would like to propose a toast
To Maureen's noble try
It went well

MAUREEN
Go to hell

BENNY
Was the yuppie scum stomped?
Not counting the homeless
How many tickets weren't comp'ed?

ROGER
Why Did Muffy--

BENNY
Alison

ROGER
Miss The Show?

BENNY
There was a death in the family
If you must know

ANGEL
Who died?

BENNY
Our akita

MARK, RODGER, ANGEL, COLLINS
Evita

BENNY
Mimi- I'm surprised
A bright and charming girl like you
Hangs out with these slackers
(Who don't adhere to deals)

They make fun -Yet I am the one
Attempting to do some good
Or do you really want a neighborhood
Where people piss on your stoop every night?

Bohemia, Bohemia
Is a fallacy in your head
This is Calcutta
Bohemia is dead

MARK
Dearly beloved, we gather here to say
our goodbyes

COLLINS & ROGER
Dies Irae - Dies Illa
Kyrie Eleison
Yitgadal V' Yitkadash (etc.)

MARK
Here she lies
No one knew her worth
The late great daughter of Mother Earth
On these nights when we celebrate the birth
In that little town of Bethlehem
We raise our glass- You bet your ass to-
La Vie Boheme

ALL
La Vie Boheme
La Vie Boheme
La Vie Boheme
La Vie Boheme

MARK
To days of inspiration,
Playing hookey, making something
Out of nothing, the need
To express-
To communicate,
To going against the grain,
Going insane,
Going mad

To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension,
To starving for attention,
Hating convention, hating pretension,
Not to mention of course,
Hating dear old mom and dad

To riding your bike
Midday past the three piece suits-
To fruits- To no absolutes-
To Absolut- To choice-
To the Village Voice-
To any passing fad

To being an us- For once-
Instead of a them-

ALL
La Vie Boheme
La Vie Boheme

MAUREEN
Is the equipment in a pyramid?

JOANNE
It is, Maureen

MAUREEN
The mixer dosn't have a case
Don't give me that face

MR. GREY
AHHEMM

MAUREEN
Hey Mister- She's my sister

MR. GREY
So that's five miso soup,
Four seaweed salad
Three soy burger dinner,
Two tofu dog platter
And one pasta with meatless balls

A BOY
Eww

COLLINS
It tastes the same

MIMI
If you close your eyes

MR. GREY
And thirteen orders of fries
Is that it here?

ALL
Wine and beer!

MIMI & ANGEL
To hand-crafted beers made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildos, To curry Vindaloo
To Huevos Rancheros and Maya Angelou

MAUREEN & COLLINS
Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion,
Creation, Vacation

MARK
Mucho masturbation

MAUREEN & COLLINS
Compassion, to fashion, to passion
When it's new

COLLINS
To Sontag

ANGEL
To Sondheim

FOUR PEOPLE
To anything taboo

COLLINS & ROGER
Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and Cage

COLLINS
Lenny Bruce

ROGER
Langston Hughes

MAUREEN
To the stage!

PERSON #1
To Uta

PERSON #2
To Buddha

PERSON #3
Pablo Neruda, too

MARK & MIMI
Why Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow
To blow off Auntie Em

ALL
La Vie Boheme

MAUREEN
And wipe the speakers off before you pack

JOANNE
Yes, Maureen

MAUREEN
Well- Hurry back

MR. GREY
Sisters?

MAUREEN
We're close

ANGEL, COLLINS, MAUREEN, MARK & MR GREY
Brothers!

MARK, ANGEL, MIMI & 3 OTHERS
Bisexuals, trisexuals, Homo Sapiens,
Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men,
Pee Wee Herman
German wine, turpentine, Gertrude Stein
Antonioni, Bertolucci, Kurosawa
Carmina Burana

ALL
To apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstasy
Vaclav Havel- The Sex Pistols, 8BC
To no shame- Never playing the fame game

COLLINS
To marijuana

ALL
To sodomy
It's between God and me
To S & M

BENNY
Waiter...Waiter...Waiter

ALL
La Vie Boheme

COLLINS
In honor of the death of Bohemia an impromtu salon will commence immediately following dinner...
Mimi Marquez, clad only in bubble wrap, will perform her famous lawn chair-handcuff dance to the sounds of iced tea being
stirred.

ROGER
And Mark Cohen will preview his new documentary about his inability to hold an erection on high holy days.

MARK
And Maureen Johnson, back from her spectacular one-night engagement at the eleventh street lot, will sing Native American
tribal chants backwards through her vocoder, while accompanying herself on the electric cello- Which she has never never
studied.

BENNY
Your new boyfriend doesn't know about us?

MIMI
There's nothing to know-

BENNY
Don't you think that we should discuss-

MIMI
It was three months ago-

BENNY
He dosn't act like he's with you-

MIMI
We're taking it slow-

BENNY
Where is he now?

MIMI
He's right- Hmm

BENNY
Uh huh

MIMI
Where'd he go?

MARK
And Roger will attempt to write a bittersweet, evocative song

(Roger picks up a guiter and plays)

MARK
That doesn't remind us of 'Musetta's
Waltz'

COLLINS
Angel Dumott Schunard will model the latest fall fashions from Paris while accompanying herself on the 10-gallon plastic
pickle tub.

ANGEL
And Collins will recount his exploits
as an Anarchist- Including the tale of
his successful reprogramming of the
MIT virtual reality equipment to self-destruct as it broadcasts the words:

ALL
'Actual Reality - Act Up - Fight AIDS!'

BENNY
CHECK!!

MIMI
Excuse me- Did I do something wrong?
I get invited, then Ignored all night long

ROGER
I've been trying- I'm not lying-
No one's perfect, I've got baggage

MIMI
Life's too short, Babe, time is flying
I'm looking for baggage that goes
with mine

ROGER
I should tell you-

MIMI
I've got baggage, too

ROGER
I should tell you--

BOTH
Baggage- Wine-

OTHERS
And Beer!

(beeper alarms go off)

MIMI
AZT break

ROGER
You?

MIMI
Me. You?

ROGER
Mimi

[Thanks to shay, Dianne, Ryan, Lila for corrections]

..and thats the last post from xanga

2007-07-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The following is from the CD by Fortner Anderson + tape/head: he sings

OMAR Khadr was 15 years old in July of 2002 when he was captured in Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces during Operation "Enduring Freedom." He has remained in U.S. detention since then and is currently one of approximately 500 prisoners held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. The United Nations has demanded that this prison camp should be closed and its detainees either released or put on trial.

SUBSEQUENT to his capture, Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was imprisoned and tortured at the notorious prison at Baghram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. The tortures described in the piece are those likely to have been inflicted upon him between the ages of 15 and 19. These are based upon testimonies of former detainees of the Guantanamo facility, representations by Khadr's legal councils, and the investigations into torture practices of the U.S. government and its proxies by Non Governmental Organizations such as Amnesty International.

THE U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the military trial that the U.S. government had devised to prosecute "enemy combatants" such as Omar Khadr is illegal as it breeches both U.S. law and the Geneva conventions. Yet following that ruling, Omar Khadr remains in a legal black hole unable to obtain due process and possibility of fair trail. He remains subject to cruel and degrading treatment and long periods of isolation. After four years of interrogations he is said to be despondent, subject to profound despair, and suicidal.

For those young men caught within the American gulag and in particular, Omar Khadr, it is imperative that we speak out to denounce these blatant violations of human rights and international law. A collective silence of the American and Canadian people will doom these young men and it will show a lie in the heart of our own freedom.

To learn more of the plight of the thousands of men held in the vast complex of U.S. and U.S. proxy torture facilities in countries scattered across the globe, please check-out the following web sites:

Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobayindex-eng

Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture.htm

Caged Prisoners : www.cageprisoners.com

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation : www.cbc.ca/news/background/khadr/

HE SINGS

he is a boy

a boy

who sings

who trills, warbles and chants

he is a boy

a boy

who sings

who sings like a bird

he is a boy

who sings

of days drowned under earth

of nights rendered into dawn

a boy who sings of the broken tomb of his father

who sings of his father

who sings of the raging grief of his mother

who sings of his mother

he is a boy who sings

into pale faces

that burn with the pride

the pride of their stiff naked lips

he sings of a room

a table, a bowl and a chair

the bowl resting upon the chair

his body resting upon the table

his head resting

resting in the bowl

his lungs bursting as his face rests in the bowl of water

he sings

he sings of

his tongue split and splintered to its dark red root

he sings of the soles of his feet

he sings of the soles of his feet that must not fall

he sings of the soles of his feet that fall and the sparks that lift them again

he is a boy

he is a boy who caws, who squeals, who brays

who sings his song

who sings his song while hanging

who sings his song while hanging from a hook

he is a boy that sings while hanging from his wrists

hanging from a hook

hooded and bound

twenty-one days, 16 hours a day

he hangs and he sings like a bird

he is a boy who sings a song

who sings into a hole

a hole in the earth

the earth where he has been chained

chained for 30 days

for one hundred days

for two hundred days

for three hundred days

he sings the cold muzzle slipped between young lips

teeth and tongue

he sings of the shock

the shocks

and the urine and shit that flow after each shock

each new shock to his anus

he sings when the coals of Winstons and Camels and Marlboros burn small circular

wounds along his arms

he sings

he sings shackled and draped naked upon a table

as a boy from Georgia or Tennessee

whispers whispers

he sings of his fear

the fear in his young cock

his young cock caught in the blades

the sharp blades of his jailors' scissors

he sings of the blood

the blood of a young woman

spread upon his chest

as she whispers

whispers desecration

into the warmth of his ear

he sings of his interrogators whose sons and grandsons

will come, will come

to beat him

beat him in their turn

he sings the song of a slow turning wheel

turning without end

as he crawls to his cot in a cage 6 feet by 12

open to the rain

open to the wind

open to the night

open to the screech of the gulls that wheel above

that do not know and do not care

he sings

four hundred days

five hundred days

six hundred days

he sings of Canada

oh Canada

the Maple Leafs

and the dark eyes of his sister

he sings of a merciful and a vengeful god

he sings of the martyr's victory

he sings like a bird in the butcher's fist

he sings as the butcher's red fists beat his song into the sand

he sings of the implacable sand and of the red specked breath that flies

that flies from countless round pink holes into eternity

eternity that holds his song in the teeth of its metal flames

eight hundred days

nine hundred days

one thousand days

twelve hundred days

he is now seventeen years old

he too fears the fire

he too fears the end

and that there will be no end

he sings of his cup

his blanket

his holy book

a song

a song of three emaciated comforts

in a cage a boy sings his song

a song without sound

with no voice, cry or scream

his song stiff with silence

he sings but we do not hear

he sings but can not hear

we cannot hear in our silence

such a fearsome quiet

before dawn

in darkness

he sings

he still sings

this boy

this boy who sings

alone

*********

Fortner Anderson

hullo..wake up

2007-07-11T00:16:00.001-07:00

hungry, bored, sleepy, post-lunch lull (but not lunched yet)...
i want to write something...a prose piece...been thinking about sundry subjects these last few evenings to scribble about aimlessly but every other evening my comp gets hijacked by people- a bunch of loonie young boys spending their summer hols in lahe laheland (translated: the slow slow land, but i did rather imagine it as neverland) and ganging up at a spooky terrace every evening to count stars and play make-believe cricket with coconut shells; a bunch of brand new engineers done with 8th sem and stealing time before that fateful call for getting "corporatised" comes; post office conversations with the odd drink and shitting rocks in obscure getaways!!
so what exactly has been happening these last few days? difficult query that..when you are done with the drinks and the conversations and you head back to your own hideout to mull over the events of the day. Life, life, life. that's what been happening..and we lazy, semi-dazed, idealistic bumchums have yet not written any one of our collective thoughts and random talks!

poems..(a series on similar themes n moods)

2007-07-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

Hourglass/Timepiece

The hour fails to impress

With the gravity of its destiny

Clock ticks away, reading

minutes,

seconds

and

micro-seconds.

The ant is dead

Long been dead

On the skin of my arm

Mashed in indifferent irritation.

And the insects crowd the screen

Of this laptop

15 seconds of warmth

Before the town shuts down.

Dogs in garages and high security lawns

Rest their wet noses on the cold earth.

Sweat trickles down the calves of my arms

The ennui of the moment lingers

Painfully long.

Than it gets dark

Stars shoot up in the

wild west horizon

The sky still sparkles

with distant Diamonds.

21.06.07 23:51hours

All along the watchtower

The paradox of

Modern society

And people like me

Is something very intricate

The dimensions and the dynamics

And the bouts of nostalgic

Of an era gone by.

Of youth, of elegance

And the days of living carelessly.

And than a song plays

on the radio

and the melody

floats on

like an afterglow.

A summer time spent in

The monsoons

And times

Of people.

Discovering

Civilizations.

Coming home

To one’s

Own self.

25.06.07 17.19hrs

Nearing eventide..and after

Up flew the eagle

Becoming a part of the circle

Of his mates;

The canvasses on the sky

Stretch to

Accommodate

The gathering.

Clouds and their silver linings

And their blue counterparts.

Twilight’s the lamp-tighting time

The offering of ‘dhuna’-

(that delicious smoke made

with coconut barks, fire

and other miscellaneous

Ingredients) - to

The evening spirits

As the drifters waywardly

Pass by

The solitary village post

The sodium campus lights

The muezzin’s azaan.

25.06.07

The difference between the living and the dead

A dying

Relationship

Is a sad sight

A lump in the throat

As you ruminate

which isn’t too

often in these

fast days.

The lotus

In its

Rotten marsh

Yet grace personified;

That little

Loco heart

Went off to

Chase arbit dreams

And from there

Hangs a

Tale;

Seeking a lost perfection

Tossed and twisted

By the dirt

That blew

Over your face;

Traditional mores

In a judgmental society

But civilization is a

Part of existing;

A solitary thought

Ponders at your

Brow

And

The vicious circle

Begins.

25.06.07 19.13hrs

attempting a self definition if u please;p

2007-07-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

17.06.07

A thought just struck me while compiling a winamp playlist for my evening sky gazing mode. About the random selections we make in life. Like deciding on listening to a new album and than picking a track at random. We have so many similar such random incidents; that choice nature and circumstance throw on us to take an action of coherent importence.

My dilemma is somewhat existentialist in the peculiar way it comes to me. I have a belief in the nothingness of things. Of the ephemerality of this world’s lights and sounds.

The Corrs,” I listen to the radio” playing.

21.06.07. on a sunny late-afternoon when a sick leave was postponed;

i am

a product of my thoughts

my environment and my memories

my peculiar peeves and my endless philosophizing

my schooling and the pros and cons of education

of the conversations under the sky

the daughter of my parents

my brother’s sister

the many relationships we make in life

a child-woman still

the forgotten idealistic bohemia

the understanding of my readings of eclectic books

the desire for coherence in images

made of the mud, salt and soul

the irreverent traditional human being

lots of chatter and silences

a passionate and feeling woman

the disillusionment of modern society’s frills and hypocrisies

sum of all the accidents originating from chaos theory

every lived experience of travels and travelers

a germ in the great scheme of things

a face with two large droopy eyes

the realization of the plays and cinema I watch

scattered words washed away by the waves from the sand

the stories that I heard in my ma’s womb

rain, history, mythology, civilization

a pagan

a mass of raw emotions

inertia, flux and caricatures

the spirit that falls in love with the moon every night

smoke, smoke and smoke

many names, many identities

many things for many people

part of the phantoms in your closet

a sexless nude portrait in the chapel

art and personification

about journeys, dead butterflies on my tabletop

and a long gasp of exhilaration before eventide.

delayed decoding..

2007-07-11T00:11:00.000-07:00

19.06.07 12.40 am

Long eves spent in the lonely hill

Conversations, thoughts, bees and butteflies;

And the daily chats with the migrant maid!

Grunge modes and glam modes

The solitary chase into the wild vast night.

And activism in all its varied natural states;

The readings on the existence of consciousness

And ‘The Reprieve’ with Sartre

On the bed with so many pillows.

There was this walk

Along the peculiar stream

The hellos exchanged with domestic dogs

And strays.

Rituals of opening the wide window panes

And gazing at green trees on the near sky

Feng-shuis and the literature of nationalities.

A trip with Everett Ullysses

And the jokes at the expense of morality

And a smattering of musical phrases;

Perfecting the art of the man and his art

And thoughts of revolution:

Anarchy, Sweetness, joie-de-vivre.

2007-07-11T00:09:00.001-07:00

18.06.07

So how are we today? After the morn showers when the heavens opened up to a state full of people..and than the walk down the univ lane and the talks and the conversations..the politics of the real life…anyways than, back at home with a lingering headache and that “buring” of the eyes and than this family comes up from nowhere…and than we do the 5am dance…it’s nice..flamboyant..without the glitters of the material life..memories of candlelight conversations….and trying to gaze at the moon and the star’s position..somebody told me it was a “grohon”…picking up a book from the mysteries of my living room and discovering it’s got something to do with Ginsberg..and than it had the personal touch..To X…from Y…(now that’s a one for the memories)..!

And so a conversation on culture, linguistics and the politics of globasation and technology…and about the salad days..the bicycle rides and the trips to nowhere..the mischiefs of school and first love letters..Quite an aptitude for nostalgia u might say!

2007-07-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 15, 2007

an interesting play i came across..

"If you wanna wanna be alive"

Durga Chew-Bose

Durga Chew-Bose wrote this play in 6 hours for a school drama festival while studying at the Armand Hammer United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico.

SCENE 1

A girl named Smith. Sitting on the edge of the stage. Maybe some chill jazz playing in the background. Talking to the audience the whole time.

Smith-What would you do? What would you do if you had one day? What would you do if you had one day to live? Would you go to a bar, and buy as many drinks as you can, and trip on dialogue with a bartender who's never met you-Bullshit your life to him and create stories about loves you've never had, and places you've only seen in faded vacation magazines that lie in the waiting room of the hospital. Or get into your car, turn on the ignition, and drive. Drive until you run out of gas.--Until your tank decides your destination-sitting on the hood of your car, blowing smoke at the stars, watching it dance out of your lips…and waiting. OR, you could always just buy a disposable camera, and take pictures of your favorite places. Like the park bench just by your house, or the jazz section of the audio department in the library where you would spend countless hours not thinking.--Once the role was done, you could mail it to the person who sees you the most, but knows you the least-your neighbor. Now at least, he would know you.

She looks down at her hands, and then pulls a gun out of her jacket pocket.

Smith-I didn't do any of those things. What I did do was buy a gun.

SCENE 2

Smith walks into the local radio station. Still talking to the audience, but doing the actions she describes. Example: walking in with gun while talking to the audience, radio station people running out, walking into the glass enclosed DJ room, putting headphones on, and locking the door. -All the while talking to the audience.

Smith: So I guess what I did was a little much like a Quentin Tarantino, seventies music inspired scene. I walked into the local radio station, kicked everyone out, and locked myself in a room full of LPs, and one hit wonders.

Looks at the audience, then her gun, and then back at the audience

Smith: It's funny how people listen to you when you've got a 9mm gripped between your fingers.

Enters the janitor, Beverly, unaffected by Smith and her gun, and the commotion-sweeping the floor, with headphones on and humming some old school Motown hit. Smith sees her outside the disk jockey room-bangs on the window, shows her the gun. Beverly takes off her headphones, and slowly puts down the broom.

Smith looks at the audience. Scratches her head a little with the gun.

Smith: what would you do? What would you do if the tick tock of time was like fate on your wrist?

She throws her gun down and opens the door for Beverly. Beverly enters; Smith looks at her nametag and introduces herself. Beverly looks nervous, the whole time.

Smith: I'm Smith, and you're Beverly. And I'm taking over for now. And I promise you we won't be strangers by the end of the night.

Beverly: I'm just here to sweep floors, and rub coffee stains off the tables.

Smith grins. Looks around the room. Touches the records in the shelves. And grins again.

Smith: Are you telling me you never indulge in a little Stones, or Marvin Gaye while cleaning coffee stains.

And as she puts her headphones on, she sings, and picks up the broom, and dances around the room. And sings a little to the audience. "let's get it on" is playing.

Smith: "I've been really trying baby, trying to hold back that feeling for so long…and if you feel, like I feel baby."

Beverly grins. And joins in.

Smith: See I told you. How many strangers, have you done that with before…we're practically life long friends now.

Smith looks at the audience.

Smith: oh, the irony in 'life long'

Beverly picks up the broom, and continues cleaning.

Smith sits back down puts on the headphones and starts her broadcast.

Smith: ok let's do this. "Live from 107. 3 KISS radio- this is my life in song. -- -commercial free beats that capture the first album you ever bought, your last day as a virgin, and the one song that would kick your ass out of bed on Monday mornings. I guess you could say the soundtrack, to my life. This is Smith, and I'm not taking requests. This is fiction, based on the greatest story ever told."

She looks at Beverly, and puts on CCR "Have you ever seen the rain?"

Smith takes off the headphones, and sits back.

Smith: See Bev…I can call you that right?

Beverly still a little apprehensive, and eyeing the gun, nods yes… (CCR is still playing softly in the background)

Smith: I first heard this song one morning when I was sixteen sitting on my balcony hammock reading. Suddenly drops of water started soaking my pages. I looked up, and saw my hippie upstairs neighbor watering her plants, and not paying attention to what she was doing. She was dancing and shaking her head back and forth, and singing along. When I looked down at my page, it was soaked-and I could no longer read anything. I don't even remember the book I was reading. But I remember thinking I love living in apartments-with hippie neighbors off course.

Beverly looks up from her sweeping, and leans her chin against her broom.

Beverly: you know, when I hear this song, I think about the time I got my first car. I was so excited at the time that I made a mix tape right away. The thing is, I was too impatient at the time to actually make a whole mix, so I only recorded that song. I climbed into my car, and played it on repeat. I got sick of it pretty fast. And so did my neighborhood, because I was still too scared to drive on the highway, so I just drove in circles around my block. I retired that song pretty early.

Smith grins, and puts the headphones back on. Bev goes back to cleaning. The phone rings. Smith answers. All of the conversation on the radio.

Smith: Smith here. And Beverly too. And our memories of first cars and apartment fever. Anything I can help you with? Any triggered memory you would like to share?

Woman on other line. Really loud and drunk. Her name is Shirley.

Shirley: Actually, you can help me. I've drunk too much, and can't see straight. Or walk straight. But your music is good for me-good for me right now. It's better than conversation. Or infomercials on TV, I've already bought one blender, and two ab workout tapes, that I'll regret tomorrow morning. -Anyways, so what gives with you DJing the late night program? I've never heard you before.

Smith: Funny story, I walked into the station with a gun, and took over the radio waves. Something I've always wanted to check off on my to-do list before I die. That and kiss someone under water, and write a book.

Smith laughs, and looks at Beverly who laughs too.

Smith: no, I just lying, but not about kissing somebody under water.

Shirley screams into the phone drunkenly.

Shirley: I've kissed somebody under water once. I sneaked into my neighbor's pool with my boyfriend. We were making so much noise, that the neighbors woke up, and came outside. We dove underwater, and he kissed me. It wasn't romantic. And it was hard to do. Not like the fucking movies. Nope.

She pauses-and yells back into the phone.

Shirley: I should make a to-do list too. Because if I don't, I'll end up drunk every night, buying blenders for the rest of my life!

Smith looks at the audience.

Smith: If only everyone had nothing better to do than to buy blenders.

Smith puts her headphones back on.

Smith: Ok, to anyone who's still listening. To anyone who has a to-do list. Here's a little Dylan.

Plays Dylan's "Don't think twice it's alright" (not too loud, and not too soft) All three of the women go back to their respective parts. Shirley channel surfs, with the phone still against her ear, and glass next to her. She looks at the empty glass, and then back at the TV. Smith, looks at her watch. She sighs a couple times. Looks around at all the records. Doesn't smile. The song fades. (Not the whole song played) Beverly brooms toward the audience, and has a short monologue.

Bev: I know what would be number one on my to-do list. I would buy a car. A car with tinted windows. I've always wanted a car with tinted windows. Whenever I see a car with tinted windows, I'm always so curious as to who's inside. I would love to be somebody's intrigue, just for once.

Beverly returns to cleaning, but isn't as concentrated as she was before. As the Dylan song fades, all three characters return to their original parts.

Shirley: You still there? That song sobered me up a little. Actually, the memories are what did it. I'd forgotten about the history music brings. I'd forgotten about the high I would get. Like the buzz you get from a good conversation. Like the one we're having right now. It's been a long time since I've had some good dialogue. You know?

Smith: yup.

Smith looks at her watch. A lot more. She starts to get more tired. "Hallelujah"-Jeff Buckley starts to play.

Shirley: So I'm getting a little tired. And I think I might have good dreams tonight. With an even better soundtrack. Thank you for that, Smith. For the first time, in a long time, I want to wake up early. You know, so I can feel the crisp morning. And taste the day.

Smith: Peace. Shirley….oh wait, Shirley, if you had one theme song, what would it be?

Shirley: Tiny dancer-Elton John.

They both hang up.

Beverly talks to the audience.

Bev: You know I swept the same spot for a couple hours tonight. You know I never thought I was going to have a gun pointed to me tonight. You know, I haven't thought about my first car in a very long time. Sometimes we create non-existent nostalgia to make us smile. But tonight it was real.

She puts her broom down and turns off the lights. Smith is left sitting in the dare-with her headphones still on. The only light is coming from the street lamp outside. She signs off the radio with this monologue. Waits a good while before she starts her monologue.

Smith: What would you do if you only one day to live? Would you spend time with the ones that love you? Would you confront your greatest fear? Would you confess your love? Would you spend the night with two strangers? I would. So many things I've done, I regret. Regret stings. But tonight was damn good. And like in the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, when Redford and Newman run out, and time freezes, I'm signing off. Remember, this was fiction based on the greatest story ever told. Fuck it. This was so cliché.

She takes off the headphones, looks around the room, and picks up the gun, and stares at it for a while. She gets up and turns her back to the audience. BLACKOUT. And fade out of Jeff Buckley.

2007-07-11T00:07:00.002-07:00

a conversation...
HARD BALL AT THE WAILING WALL
Robert J. Lewis

* * * * * * * * * *

Miraculously surviving CNN's network of shredding machines and their backups, the following transcript was found intact and spittle-stuck to the bottom of bin-22.

Wailing DomeWailind Dome 2INQUISITOR: Do you ever think of the Mothers and families of the innocent young men and women you brainwash into becoming terrorists, cold-blooded murderers?

Activist: Do you ever think of the Mothers and families of innocent Palestinians who have been murdered by Israelis?

If I may be allowed to speak of them according to their calling, their profession -- they are neither murderers nor terrorists: they are soldiers. Secondly, they are not brainwashed and we do not solicit: they come to us voluntarily. There are people on waiting lists waiting their turn to serve the cause of the liberation of Palestine. We often meet with the parents and brothers and sisters of the martyrs, and when your western Press shows pictures of grieving Mothers weeping over their dead children, they conveniently don't report that these Mothers would wish the same thing again and again for their children because they believe the Palestinian people are entitled to a homeland – the land that was once theirs. As a Father with 3 daughters, I cried when my first daughter left our home for the last time to live with the man she married. The fact that I cried didn't mean I disapproved of, or rejected her right to happiness and marriage.

INQUISITOR: How does your conscience allow you to set these mostly young innocent men and women onto a path that will result in their certain death and the deaths of innocent civilians?

Activist: How does your conscience allow your Press to systematically consign the murder of innocent Palestinians to the back pages of your newspapers? What fiction, the West calls the 6 o'clock News, would have its listeners believe that an Israeli life is inherently more valuable than a Palestinian life?

If it is universally true that all human beings would rather live than not live, shouldn't you, in the West, be asking why so many Palestinians are volunteering to die, when we have just established that everyone would rather live than not live? How many consecutive negative experiences does it take to grow what you call a terrorist? I strongly suspect you are incapable of formulating such questions because the constructs of your culture don't allow you to comprehend that our martyrs are fighting for their homeland, for their dignity and basic rights which Israel has systematically deprived them of. When they come to me, they are coming to serve the cause of Palestine's liberation. And to your question how does my conscience allow this? I do what I do precisely because I have a conscience, because I love and care for my people. No less than average Israelis love and care for their people. We all come from the same seed.

INQUISITOR: But aren't these innocent men and women 'brainwashed' to believe they are going to martyr's heaven, otherwise they wouldn't need middlemen like you?

Activist: Another misconception sustained and propagated by the West. Our martyrs are no more brainwashed or outraged than Americans would be if a belligerent nation were to enter America and take over the State of Texas. If American soldiers can volunteer to fight and die for their homeland, for their beliefs, so can Palestinians. Our role is to fine-tune the martyr's heavenly aspirations with political ones. In some cases, if not most, the martyr, who might be Christian, is motivated by the political situation on the ground.

What you in the West are afraid to face is that all of you, without exception, have lost the power to believe. You go to your places of worship but you don't believe, or act in a manner consistent with your belief, or in a manner that honors and befits your God because there is an ungodly separation of Church and State. Unlike yourselves, we don't dress one way for our places of worship, and then wear mini skirts and thongs outside these places. To us, that is a joke, a blasphemy, a contradiction the West calls freedom. What kind of religion is it that once outside your religious institutions, everything is permitted? Is it politically incorrect to mention that where the pandemic of AIDS in Africa ends is where Islam begins? One day the West will realize that the concept of freedom finds its true home and flourishes best under the vigilance and care of Islam.

In your history, there was a Christian time when you believed, but that time has long past. If I'm not mistaken, one of your great philosophers, Nietzsche, wrote that God Is Dead, and the reason your God is dead is because you're all too busy thinking about your new home, your new car, your status, the stock market, your job, your vacation, what to wear today, what film to rent, how to increase the number of available TV channels. What's very plain to us, but still unremarked by yourselves, is that there's no time for God in your culture. And so what do you do when confronted with a people who not only believe in God, but actually live according to God's will, both in spirit and deed. You demonize us. You turn our believers into monsters, like you're trying to do to me now, as we speak. You deny us our belief because you yourself don't believe. And your hatred of us is disguised envy because you know that all the unmatched genius and science of the West cannot produce a weapon like our martyr: only the chemistry of belief can produce such a weapon. And then you hate us even more because such a weapon forces you to acknowledge us, to talk to us, to respect us, an unarmed, impoverished, suppressed people, because there is no defense against the martyr, other than granting us the basis upon which your political belief system is founded: the right to self determination.

Why doesn't your Press report the fact that Arafat is a Christian? Because Arafat, as monster-fanatic, is one of the distortions upon which the credibility of American foreign policy depends.

Wailing Dome 3Wailing Dome 4INQUISITOR: So why don't you, yourself, volunteer for martyr's heaven, to better serve the cause of your liberation, and the Will of Allah, of which you so grandiloquently and reverentially speak? What's holding you back?

Activist: Each of us is called to play a role in the liberation of Palestine. My role, although a fairly an important one, cannot be compared to the magnificent and privileged role of the martyr.

INQUISITOR: Sounds to me like you're afraid to die?

Activist: So now you're trying to portray me as a coward, and before that, a monster. When my work is done here, and there is still much work to be done, I will gladly, and with great humility, leave my mortified flesh.

INQUISITOR: But the martyrs you train to take the lives of innocent men, women and children? How does this square with your belief in God, the Koran?

Activist: The belligerent nation of Israel, contrary to the many UN resolutions, is our unlawful occupier and oppressor. Our martyrs are delivering and will continue deliver the same message, which still hasn't been properly assessed: free us as a people, allow us the right to our homeland, as Israel was allowed following the Balfour Declaration, and the lives of innocent men, women and children will be spared. Our people are caught up in a David and Goliath War, but we, the sling-shot people, will persevere, despite Israel's American built F16s. We are not responsible for the deaths of innocent men, women and children. Israel alone is responsible for their deaths.

INQUISITOR: Let's imagine a future state of Palestine, with the full authority of a sovereign nation, where within its borders thrives Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel. Why should Israel, by creating a Palestinian state, give Hamas virtual carte blanche?

Activist: When Palestine becomes a sovereign fact, I would wager that what you in the West characterize as suicide bombings will stop. It is a part of the public record that for years Hamas played by internationally accepted rules while big talk produced nothing. To suggest that Hamas will continue to wage war against Israel, once the state of Palestine has been established, is disingenuous argument, and the excuse Israel needs to occupy us, to deny us our dignity as individuals, as a people.

THE END

PS- post me ur comments on the same.

2007-07-11T00:07:00.001-07:00

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Week “‘holi’day”

One of those days when serendipity happens.

Today is one such day. The weather took its mellow mood and people ventured down for a smoke and the idle talk. I picked up Kafka after that. His Diaries are so precise, so confident and so whimsical at their own turns. Fascinating, the mind of such a man! Creativity is such a nebulous thing..like this haze that hovers around your head and you try to catch the fragmented thoughts, unusual memories that bring that warmth, and bookends, tapes and music, travels and fellow travelers..(Well, I quite like the vicious circle of trying to chase my thoughts to the end of my head)..and than coming back to square 1, wondering if the entire exercise was futile.

But solitude is nice. I like it. Obscurity has been increasingly so relishing a thought. I do my thing and than I just vanish..haha, quite a vivid imagination, that’s what I got. But just sitting down with meself is such a delicious thought after a long day with civilization and society. Good ol pals, the odd “guitar”, rolling paper and conversations, silences and music. Music..yes there now, music is such a creation..(going back to the stream I was on while writing the first para..). Anyways!

Lost…will write more laters. 13.06.07, 19:51pm

Read this essay called "Does Consciousness exists?" by William James( 1904). i browsed over some 5 pages of a 13 page essay but quite a strong argument he holds up there.

2007-07-11T00:06:00.002-07:00

Monday, June 11, 2007

a five am dream!

my home in the hills is lovly. it's the perfect plc for me. i share it
with kazu (it's a 3 bedroom apartment and also part panos guest house
so we have lot of ppl visting also.tho havent stayed there too long as
yet)..now i have the entire plc to meself fo a whole month..there 's a
treasure trove of books, dvds and lots of fresh air and greenery and
obscurity, it's like, whn i return home, i go off the radar..haha!!
a few lines from ginsberg that i liked.that kinda explains the atmosphere at my house
in the kharguli hills...;)

Five A.M. (Allen Ginsberg)

Elan that lifts me above the clouds
into pure space, timeless, yea eternal
Breath transmuted into words
Transmuted back to breath
in one hundred two hundred years
nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries
of cadenced breathing -- beyond time, clocks, empires, bodies, cars,
chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation empires
brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork
of the mind -- but where's it come from?
Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for you? God?
Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in Heaven or Hell --
Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night
flooding mind with space, echoing through future cities, Megalopolis or
Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi Plains -- Otsego County
farmhouse, Kansas front porch?
Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana --
coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas?
Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky
at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street --
Where does it come from, where does it go forever?

2007-07-11T00:06:00.001-07:00

Monday, June 11, 2007

stitchings in the gaps..

i visited my so called blog after almost a year and i realised (what i have known all along) that probally i should get back to scrapping some again. but laziness, excuses of the "frenetic pace of work and events", life, life and the sorts become my handicap whenever i feel like penning down some thoughts. but than why not..considering the amount of time and space i let my mind wander and soar at its whims, i actually should be doing a little justice to keeping track of all those myriad calenders of a day gone by..or an experience!

i have been working for a while now..it's an organisation that works on various issues ranging from environment, public health, conflict (and the influence of conflict on cultures), globalisation (and the connotations in the developmental countries and communities), media pluralism et al. i wont get into the nitty-gritties of what my job involves here though i can say ("with a straight face", as a friend aptly put it) that im liking it here. im back in the green green grass of home...though that's actually debatable coz what is home afterall..my definition of one isnt delimited by geographical boundaries or any material trappings of a house. it's more about the mind here. about being happy deep down perhaps. and after all the rhetoric has flushed down the loo, it's about being truely on your own. guess that must be it.

yes, i do essentially belong to the Northeastern part of India but categorising this verdant expanse of land steeped in tradition, indigenous cultures, people and lived realities is not something i would endeavour to do here. but during the time i am here, exploring my roots and genealogies (haha..dont read me literally please!) i intend to travel a lot and click away, discover, discover and also write down some of my ramblings while am at it.

2007-07-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 22, 2006

resurrection

well, this is kind of a new beginning for me. and like all new beginnings, i am performing the ritual burial of the past. in physical terms, nothing really has changed probably but i am trying to focus my energies into a direction i might be able to work on. here im now, in another metropolis with a new set of friends and definitely experiencing a totally new emotion. i am so busy that i hardly get time to think my thoughts. but i am not really regretting it coz i did rather work and crash on my bed at the end of the day i guess.

it's been a long journey of sorts. reacing this moment in time. n this tag, this new identity as a journalist doesnt really influence me coz i have never been bothered about such considerations. but yes im enjoying this life for the moment. it's a lot of practical work here altho the longdrawn lectures in the morning make me drowsy. our profs are all quite some characters and of course we have our favs.

i have joined TV here.now now it's not a job am doing..just a journo course u kno! and the irony is i hardly watch the idiot box but wanted to go for this coz i m getting into this mode now where my fingers are actually itching to try some camera work tho my knowledge about it is null and void. i want to fuse words and images to bring out life as i see it. idealistic again? maybe. but whoever said idealists die a hard death never lived the life. the emotions and the erotic sensation of feeling something acutely is too much to throw away as a half eaten dinner.

i did rather be me than someone else. and i think as of now im doing just fine. you see, i have just started learning how to manipulate things to suit my will and tho i still think it's quite a dirty job, i dont mind as long as i dont use or end up hurting anyone. after all, didnt someone sing "live and let die" (was it d beatles...m amnesiac these days!!)

anyways, that's my first blog for the day, if u can call it that. i m not bothered.

and like always, carpe diem!!

peace!

Greek Birds

Tango in Oslo

Red Moon

"Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" and speculative moo-moo

Highway City Rodeo

Scraps from a dialogue diatribe

To My Valentine-Ogden Nash

Poker PotLuck, a scene re-enacted.

Delight!

Ambers and Woodsmoke

time warp looking glass

In the name of the Destroyer

Soundtrack for a Revolution Trailer

Chef Bora and Little Paradise :)

the other

omnium-gatherum

Steve Biko: revisited

Monty Python football.. Greek and German philosophers on the field

"Imperfect Archives" at 801 Projects poignantly portrays the past

Michael Flamingo

Bushfeld Snippets, South Africa

Wet Canvas, Gooey (Jack)fruit

Lingering...

Conversations with men and witches

Seeking Saturation Part-2

From Untouchably Yours

Cultivating Fractured Identities and Spaces

Postscript.

Ying and the Yang

Discources

living, travelling, dreaming.

Identities

Gift

a mail i probally sent most of you

Thanks to Democracy and Barbarity!!

Fate-igued!

Presenting Radio Clash I

FROM THE HEIGHTS

pdf and some political thoughts

l'art pour l'art

and forced homogenisation continues

and since im lazy..

Hi All,

Artist: LyricsSong: La Vie Boheme Lyrics

..and thats the last post from xanga

Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobayindex-eng

Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture.htm

Caged Prisoners : www.cageprisoners.com

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation : www.cbc.ca/news/background/khadr/

hullo..wake up

poems..(a series on similar themes n moods)

attempting a self definition if u please;p

delayed decoding..

an interesting play i came across..

Week “‘holi’day”

a five am dream!

stitchings in the gaps..

resurrection

Artist: Lyrics
Song: La Vie Boheme Lyrics