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Oh, what a long, long wait! My first graphic novel with Campfire India is about to be released. Just heard of the announcement and bang on Janamashtmi too! Countdown begins to September 10! Tentative date of release 🙂 🙂
If on Facebook, do like its page here. You can pre-order from the site from here.
Will soon tell you when it’s out in the market. Yay!
I so don’t like Death. I cringe everyday when I read about it in the newspaper. It happens to a stranger, unexpected when she’s just eating her food. It happens when someone is happy and shopping. It happens after a prolonged, wearisome illness. Every time I read it, I imagine scenes of violent (and can I add rather imaginative) deaths in which I imagine the people I love (not me, for that’s one thing I am not scared of, weirdly). I am not masochistic, I can’t help seeing these images. And they leave my heart palpitating with fear. Makes me cringe. Every time.
I don’t like to talk to Death. I ignore it when it is walking around my house. I wash my hands, again and again and I mutter mantras to protect myself from it. I pray that it would not happen to me or the ones I love. I don’t talk about it to anyone. If there’s a death in someone’s house, I don’t even go there. What if I or someone I love catches that disease? For Death for me (and if you let yourself accept it, for you too) is a disease. It’s a disease that c
atches all of us humans in the end. It’s there, hiding behind in the ends and beginnings of every story, every myth, every philosophy discussion that has happened and will happen. We live to question or solve the idea of death. Death is at all our doors, all the time. And it doesn’t need an invitation to come inside. (My fingers are crossed so that I can ward off Death as I write this blog, for some primal me fears that it will come because I am talking about it).
Death is the reason that immortality is such a fascinating idea to me. Escaping the clutches of Death! Living on forever, without the fear of dying! The very idea to live forever! As a brain in a box of metal, or a Russian avatar, or as a spiritual immortal canoodling with hot naked bodies in a fancy heaven, immortality is a soma which I want to drink from, given a chance. Do you desire it? How much would you want to sacrifice, to give away in your desire of it?
A few days ago, I created a character who is an immortal in the new book I have been working on. I won’t tell you who he is, but let me tell you one thing I realised as I was working on him. In all his dialogues, in the way he carried himself, the way he spoke, the way he just didn’t laugh anymore, but stared, the way he didn’t gobble up his drink, but just took a sip, as if he had all the time in the world—he just seemed so weary. That was one emotion that I could smell from him. He felt so tired. So weary of living. So exhausted with the idea of continuing to live, on and on, without refreshing himself, ever.
I was surprised at this. After all, he had a boon to live forever! Why wasn’t he enjoying it? Why did it sound more like a curse to me? I hadnt planned on making him to tired, but that’s what I could smell while writing about him.
My immortal character has made me thankful that I would die sometime in the future (small cringe). I don’t want to live through a lot of things—like world wars, famines, deaths all around me. I don’t want to live as the world completely changes around me—adapting again and again to these changes and continuing to learn, adapt, make new friends, see old ones die and wither away. I don’t want to live carrying all experiences —failures, hopes, dreams, successes, sorrow, happiness—as a burden on my bent back.
Nopes, I don’t want to do that.
So bye, bye immortality. I would rather start afresh. Feel differently? Tell me about it!
yellows at lalbagh, originally uploaded by Shwetawrites.
I have a wee bit of masochism when it comes to writing. Writing doesn’t come naturally (like talking does) to me. It needs to be done in a secluded environment and I mostly hate not being around people. It makes me think, makes me sweat, it makes me run around without any results. It pays badly. Still, I love to do it. I love to write for the simple fact that it’s mostly one of the hardest thing for me to do. It’s the most challenging, the most painful thing I will ever do.
I cannot explain to you dear readers, the excitement and the fears that a blank word document page fills in me. Every time I see a blank page, my heartbeat starts drumming into a frenzy. Will I be able to fill it today? With something that might make sense to someone else? Or will I just be staring at the empty white space?
Why I am struck with these questions is because I have begun on my new book, a fantasy book I was too scared to write two years ago (which is why I wrote Mystery of the Iyer Bungalow first). Now I am finally penning this book down. The story that’s coming alive is not really mine. It’s hers. My heroine’s out and out. What will happen now? I ask myself as I read and re-read things I have already written. I don’t know. I don’t know so many things about her and the book I am writing. I am not in control, it’s painful, but still I prod on. Something impels me to write and continue to write, even though my back aches, my head aches and my emotions are in rollercoaster all the time.
In this writing, I am a medium who is telling a story, almost a shaman who connects you to the ghost. Is the heroine of this book in my head or is she from an alternate world from where, for some reason, she wants to tell her story? Am I completely making her up? Am I lying to you when I tell you that she speaks to me? She’s a person, from an alternate universe. I am a curious bystander. I dread to know what will happen to her in this. She lives in a much more scarier world than I do. She’s more exciting than I can ever be. I am comfortably sitting in my room, typing away to glory. She on the other hand, thrives on action, on the hunt. I am secretly in love with her (don’t tell her that please).
She’s an itch in my head which refuses to go away. Writing about her is not only painful, it’s also some kind of treatment. It’s an obsession. I talk about her with my family with friends. I tell them how she’s feeling today. I don’t know why I am writing about her. Why her? Why her world? Why did I choose all this to begin with? I wonder what a psychiatrist will call my obsession about writing, even though it pains me. I bet modern psychologists have a name for every obsession human beings feel. The only ones normal according to them are the ones who don’t live, don’t have a crazy passion, haven’t fallen in love and haven’t squandered money away. Also, haven’t lived to regret their choices in life. What a sorry state to be in.
So yes dear readers, I can tell you that I am a masochist. My only fear right now is that the world will end (isn’t it supposed to in Dec 2012?) and I wouldn’t have finished this story about her.
My memory. It was stolen. Just a few seconds ago. Just when I opened a new window to write this blog. I wanted to tell you about this author, a popular guy, a Nobel prize winner, whose work I have never read. His few written words inspired me, ignited me, made me smile, helped me move. This was all yesterday. I don’t remember his name now. My memory just went out, like lights going off in Indian summer heat.
These are a few residual sparks that I gather, urgently, before those also plunge into the no-memory black hole. I wanted to tell you all about it.
Just write.
This is all that’s left of him in my heart. I don’t know his name now. I don’t even know what he actually said. All I remember is that he said something, something that hung onto my body like passive smoking. Something that I don’t want to remove with a shower.
I miss my memory about him. All the missing facts and links I could have told you about. But does any of that matter? Does my memory matter when I die? Does it float around in the universe, dropping by various other humans, telling them about this author? Do you hear his name?
Internet is a life-savior for me. I cannot imagine not checking out my emails, blogs and videos that have refreshingly non-censored language and sometimes when I have time (and inclination), even porn. So I write to support the Black Out Day today. I write to support the action against a supposed ‘democracy’ trying to stuff of the biggest democracy in the world – the INTERNET! Stand together people, because we have to do this soon in our country as well if Kapil Sibal has his way. Here’s something to keep you smiling in grim times. I am embedding more because soon I might not be able to do it at all.
Protest against what’s happening in USA now by visiting www.internetcensorship.org and signing a petition meant to come from international users.
PS: Is that how activists happen? You are just sitting around doing your things and then something comes along that doesn’t let you do them. So you have no choice but to protest against it, no?
I have been toying with the idea of doing a blog on the phrase ‘Shame, shame Poppy shame’ something that is used quite freely around me, though no one knows where and how it originated. I heard it recently spoken by my mother, who rarely uses English words when in family, use this phrase for my 2-year-old nephew when he was happily running around in the buff. The term is usually used for 2-5 year olds and sung in a nursery rhyme format.
The complete rhyme is: Shame Shame Poppy (or Puppy) shame, all the donkey’s know your name.
I have rarely heard the latter, just the first four words. The phrase is a part of a list of ‘If you Grew up in India is the 90s’ you use this phrase.
According to samosapedia it is “a light hearted remonstration for some, usually minor, social transgression or faux pas, a taboo flouted, a line of decency crossed…”
I am not completely sure about this definition. It’s more than light-hearted remonstration for one. The rhyme itself seems to have come from the British rule, but the Indians have associated it more with the idea of nakedness.
The phrase is happily used in Pakistan as well as shown by this blog by an American woman married to a Pakistani guy. She mentions how her in-laws say ‘Shame, shame’ everytime they see her child naked. It’s the same as Indian households.
Author Salman Rushdie uses this phrase in Shame based in Pakistan where he talks about the idea of ‘sharam’ which includes an element of society with the English word shame. It has been interpreted as showcasing an example of an hangover of the idea of shame in post-colonial discourses.
So I have a feeling that the phrase is not as ‘light-hearted’ but rather associated with our culture’s idea of nakedness as being something shameful and which should be hidden. Of course it comes disguised in a sing-song, smiling sort of a way.
Since I am obsessed with graphs in recent weeks, I searched for the word ‘shame’ in Google Trends which tracks the ‘average traffic of shame from India in all years’. I was surprised!
What’s so shameful about 2007 and 2011 that Indians used or searched for this word so much?? Makes one’s mind wonder. Check out the whole analysis of the word here which will also give you region wise search, etc.
Hiding deep-rooted hang-ups about sexuality and ‘sharam’ behind sing-song phrases reminds me of yet another phrase for today:
Eve teasing
The word which has become popular to casually talk about the pinching, winking, breast-staring that happens in this country, has its own Wikipedia page. Quoting the rather nicely done definition there:
“Considered a problem related to delinquency in youth,[3] it is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places and catcalls to outright groping.[4][5][6] Sometimes it is referred to with a coy suggestion of innocent fun, making it appear innocuous with no resulting liability on the part of the perpetrator.[7] Many feminists and volunteer organizations have suggested that the expression be replaced by a more appropriate term. According to them, considering the semantic roots of the term in Indian English, Eve teasing refers to the temptress nature of Eve, placing responsibility on the woman as a tease.[8][9]”
Apparently the word is very strong in Bangladesh as well if Google trends (I am obsessed!) has anything to go by.
“Eve teasing is a euphemism used in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan for public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men.” – thedailystar.net
In India-only search, the phrase seems to have gained popularity in middle 2011 when there was a protest against the very idea.
The phrase seems to have its origins in India in the 1960s. I found a very interesting citation of 1960s on the website Double Tongued.
1960 Times (London, England) (Apr. 22) “Protection For Indian Girl Students” (in Delhi, India) p. 9: One aspect of the problem of student indiscipline which is plaguing university authorities in India has been the bullying and harassment of girl students in the few coeducational institutions—a pastime so common that it has been given the name of “Eve-teasing.”…“Eve-teasing” is not, apparently, just the oafish high spirits or ill-will of a handful of male students but is rather a symptom of the strong resentment which many students feel against women in the universities.
1963 Selig S. Harrison Washington Post, Times Herald (D.C.) (Oct. 26) “The Sad State Of India’s Youth” p. A8: Police officials have been discovering that the collegiate enthusiasts who prowl streets in Indian cities are not content to watch the girls go by. Indian newspapers have carried accounts of police roundups in Srinagar, Dehra Dun and other centers for indecent advances at bus stands and traffic intersections.…Happy headline writers have dubbed the new offense “Eve-teasing.”
The quotes above are from international media. I couldn’t find references to the same in 1960s Indian media. It had to be a journalist to coin a catchy, casual phrase. I place my bets on it being a male journalist. The phrase emerges from the authorities/media/patriarchal society talking jokingly about male students jeering at their fellow female students.
Eve and Tease are two words created by a patriarchal society which has been in the habit of leading and objectifying their women. It’s the same society which feels that the woman’s body is impure, full of things they don’t understand and so women are not allowed in temples during periods. Their bodies are objects which when covered should be venerated and when uncovered is a source of shame.
The phrase manages to have a relaxed attitude about things like rape and at the same time squarely puts the blame for teasing/distracting serious, studious university boys on their fellow female students. It also places the blame squarely on women for having the tempting bodies and temperaments (again patriarchal perspective). The problem which Indian women are facing even today with a Karnataka minister blaming women for being raped because they wear tight jeans.
It’s interesting to see how new words take on the same old meanings. Only more insidious.
I would like to close this with a link to one of my favourite blogs, http://blog.blanknoise.org/. Read it, if you are any gender, to understand what the other side, the non-patriarchal, the women, feel about the word.
The policeman said, don’t blame us if women get raped if they are dressed provocatively. Karnataka Women and Child Welfare Minister C C Patil said women should know how to dress or presumably face the consequences.
And here’s what the media said. I have used about 20 articles generated in the media (in English press) to see the words we use when faced with such a blatantly provocative statement from those in authority.
Interesting. I wonder if these words alone express even an iota of the rage I feel inside me.
My toothbrush,
It travels
When no one has their eyes open
Or are listlessly staring
At the slow moving
Ceiling fan.
When all are lost
In their own private
Heavens or sometimes hells.
That is when my toothbrush
Slings its bag
On its bristly shoulder
And sneaks away
Mutedly
Into the dark lanes
Of unknown names.
It never speaks of it
Where it went
Or what it did.
It never lies too,
It just smells.
Of beds slept in by strangers
And roses dipped in honey
Sweat dripping from armpits
Or a nose that is runny.
That is how I know.
That it sometimes goes
For when we touch
And make love
When its bristles tickle my teeth
Sometimes I smell
The dampness of the beach.
© 2011, Shweta Taneja
Pic credit: @Maf1967
Muses are like opportunities. They come knocking on your door at unexpected times. Sometimes you have been waiting impatiently, looking at your cellphone screen’s right hand side corner for that precise moment to strike, tapping your fingers on the side board. At times like those, you open the door without waiting or wondering who it might be in the middle of the night.
Sometimes you go out looking for muses, your hair spread wide, like a cuckoo’s nest (BTW, has anyone wondered why cuckoos keep their nests so haphazard? Maybe it’s avant garde style yet to be recognised as such). You ask stray cats, sleepy dogs and curious ravens if they have seen any muses (or opportunities can also do, please). They all shrug, look back at you like you have lost a bolt or two.
Then there are times when muses fall into your email box. There they lie, along with emails from the banks you don’t have accounts with, enthusiastic group emails of astronomy you don’t remember subscribing to and emails from sellers who are convinced you cannot do without such-and-such baby oil or book. But even when the said muses have been served to you in a platter (or in this case, your inbox), there are chances you might miss them.
You might just delete that email without opening, like you have done to other emails from this website you had subscribed to long back ago, but don’t remember why. You might open it, with cynical curiosity, scanning the email because you don’t want to go back to that synopsis you have to prepare. Even if you open it, you might fail to click the link of a short translated story of a Spanish author whose name you cannot pronounce. After all, writers and writings are out there on the internet paisa a pandrah. Then you might open the link but forget to read it as it lies waiting amongst the other tabs opened for later reads.
So that’s why if you do end up reading that story at all and realise with surprise that it was at all this time a muse, waiting to spring up and surprise you, to fire your rockers into writing, like a virus hidden in an attachment, it’s nothing short of a miracle. The muse is an unexpected best friend that landed at your doorstep, just when you were standing in the balcony, wondering what it will feel like to jump.
All this while, all you had to do is click one email link. A simple click which would have saved you from those empty days when you look in the space and no thought welcomes you. Just a simple click. Was it meant to be? Is this how destiny works? Or is it just a web, an intricate spider web of unexpected choices you constantly make every moment of your existence? Is it free will or do you have no choice in the matter? How can you ever be sure of either?
All you can do is bow to it. Smile, thank the skies, or if you believe in chaos, thank chaos. Write a blog, write a poem and scribble down the thoughts that strike you for your novel. After all, you have been granted the gift of a muse today. It doesn’t happen every day.
This post is dedicated to a muse who came unexpectedly and resulted in this blog. Thank you Juan Villoro and Word Without Borders for the unexpected muse called Holding Pattern.