tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51215227651671844052024-03-19T12:59:46.229+05:30coincidentials...Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-15347374997149048132015-11-10T11:18:00.001+05:302015-11-10T11:18:18.677+05:30Two poems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sea Lions </div>
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Zoo Ticket </div>
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Read <a href="http://1over8.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=89&Itemid=124" target="_blank">here</a></div>
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<i> [Published by <a href="http://1over8.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&Itemid=101" target="_blank">1OverThe8</a> , 2015]</i></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-2413808206911371022015-10-23T21:13:00.001+05:302015-10-23T21:14:08.282+05:30A poem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Flame of the Forest </div>
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~ Read <a href="http://issuu.com/typoetic.us/docs/typoetic_issue_4/9?e=11868506/14638738" target="_blank">here</a> ~</div>
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<i>(Published by <a href="http://typoetic.us/">Typoetic.us</a> 2015)</i></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-71825176228307721442015-05-14T13:08:00.000+05:302015-10-23T21:10:37.660+05:30Nine Poems <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dachau </div>
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Cave travel</div>
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Last hour at Marienberg</div>
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Driftwood </div>
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~ Read <a href="http://coldnoon.com/iwi/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Srajana_Kaikini_Jan14.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> ~</div>
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Highgate Cemetary </div>
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Conjugal visits </div>
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Birds</div>
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Homecoming </div>
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~ Read <a href="http://www.coldnoon.com/iwi2/pdf/Coldnoon_TravelPoetics_Jan15/Srajana_Kaikini.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> ~</div>
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<i>(published by <a href="http://coldnoon.com/issue-ix-jan-14-2/" target="_blank">Coldnoon Travel Poetics</a> 2014,2015 )<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i>
Venetian blinds<br />
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~ Read <a href="http://issuu.com/typoetic.us/docs/ty_poe-tic_us_issue_1_winter_2014pg/13?e=11868506/7784734" target="_blank">here</a> ~<br />
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<i>(published by <a href="http://www.typoetic.us/-issue-1.html" target="_blank">Typoetic.us</a>, 2014)</i></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-49526780915290690362014-07-27T07:59:00.000+05:302014-07-27T08:06:23.065+05:30Kindly , no standing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">Walk back, </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">retrace, </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">slide along, </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">skip and crawl, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">tiptoe and side-hop through this shuffling city. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">There are many ways of moving in this city,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">many ways of chasing, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">many ways of sulking and sleepwalking, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">and many ways of twirling through zebra crossings, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">in this city there are indeed many ways of walking, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">but kindly, </span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">no standing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21.81818199157715px;">~ <a href="http://kindlemag.in/standing-places-walk/" target="_blank">No standing in these places, walk on | Kindle Magazine</a> ~</span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-66397515201536464132014-06-14T01:38:00.000+05:302014-06-14T01:52:44.034+05:30Noon Intrusion <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We sit waiting.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Waiting for lunch to be served</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is that odd hour after noon</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When rumbling stomachs </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For a heady concoction.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I am strewn sideways</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On the white plastic chair</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Legs crossed up high</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">On the concrete seat in the verandah.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">While she sits huddled </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Like a bundle</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In her red plastic throne.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Smiles flash on her chubby face</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As thoughts of heavenly</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Fish curry </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Light up small happy</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Light bulbs strewn on her wrinkled lines.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Like a city balcony on a <i>Diwali </i>night.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As lazy as the sea breeze,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Pinki snoozes beside </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The <i>tulsi katte</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Her flurry tail </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Twitching in an other-worldly dream</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucky bitch...</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Has her day everyday.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So it is still twenty minutes to lunch</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">And this clock seems to take too long.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mild restlessness, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Little streams of thought,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mix with a yellow haze</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Of helpless surrender</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">To this intruder of the noon</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Who creeps in every day,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Just before lunch time</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">And seeps around me, you , Pinki</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Oozing warm lethargy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A paralysis of events ,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Where nothing can be finished</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Just that suspended thought,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Saved for after the meal.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Grandmother , young lady</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">And the bitch ,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Three variables of an equation,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Strewn in the verandah, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Paused in happy hunger,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Waiting till time ticks again.</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">- Gokarna, kartik hunnime, <o:p></o:p></span><span style="text-align: left;">2009</span></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: left;">remembering dear ajji, born in June, the only girl to cycle everyday to school from Tadadi to Torke, who married into</i><i style="text-align: left;"> Gokarna for love, and had 32 kinds of hibiscus in her garden</i></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-3725000414611371812014-03-15T00:27:00.003+05:302014-03-15T00:27:55.248+05:30Stinking Lizaveta <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">standing in front of white, white Taj Mahal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking of marigolds and paper dry </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">aboli</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">wandering through Amsterdam Centraal </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">sobbing and searching for her lost God, in blue mascara</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">sleeping outside Hotel Diana</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">dreaming of hot <i>idlis</i> and Bombay cutlet </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">singing of sunshine and seasons</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">amidst cold toilet tiles of an alley in NY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">smelling her torn tar-stained clothes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that remind of the night, coal and her dead child’s eyes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking Lizaveta </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stinking stinking stinking of this world </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and all its moist mouldy coziness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>~</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdnI5XoRj6yPNcyCntXjC7-PmTD7uZ2hlm5NMNYLqn59JbD-9zQtRvlXJ4Qxj5m3qxOoAW-l6q1DT7MDo8ObRMn7Q1U7zh9ZBSYdM2OGV5z_UhGpaoGm2v6-YDPwSXerDOOTs3ZYW2ISy/s1600/IMG_20140314_233841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOdnI5XoRj6yPNcyCntXjC7-PmTD7uZ2hlm5NMNYLqn59JbD-9zQtRvlXJ4Qxj5m3qxOoAW-l6q1DT7MDo8ObRMn7Q1U7zh9ZBSYdM2OGV5z_UhGpaoGm2v6-YDPwSXerDOOTs3ZYW2ISy/s1600/IMG_20140314_233841.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">//excerpt - chapter '</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Stinking Lizaveta' from</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">// </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“There was one special circumstance here which deeply shocked Gregory, having finally strengthened an unpleasant and revolting suspicion he had had for some time. Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya was an undersized girl ‘just under five feet’, as many pious old women of our town touchingly described her after her death. She was twenty and her healthy, broad, red face bore an expression of complete idiocy; she had a fixed and unpleasant look in her eyes, though it was meek enough. She walked about barefoot all her life, in winter as well as in summer, wearing only a hempen shift. Her very thick, almost black hair, curling like lamb’s wool, formed a kind of huge cap on her head. It was, besides, always matted with mud, and had leaves, splinters of wood, and shavings clinging to it, for she always slept on the ground and in the dirt. Her gather Ilya was a homeless sickly artisan, who had lost all his money and was perpetually drunk. He had been living for many years as a workman with some well-to-do tradesmen, also artisans of our town. Lizaveta’s mother had long been dead. Ilya , always ill and in a bad temper, used to beat Lizaveta unmercifully whenever she came home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But she came home very rarely because she used to be fed by everybody in the town as a saintly fool. Ilya’s employers, Ilya himself, and many other compassionate people in the town, especially merchants and merchant’s wives, tried many times to clothe Lizaveta more decently, and towards winter always put a sheepskin and boots on her; but, although she let them put everything on her without protest, she used to so away, preferably to the cathedral porch, and take off everything she had been given – kerchief, skirt, sheepskin, or boots – and leave it and there and walk away barefoot and in her shift as before. It happened on one occasion that our new provincial governor, on his tour of inspection of our town , caught sight of Lizaveta and was deeply hurt in his tenderest feelings. Though he realised that she was a ‘saintly fool’, as indeed he was officially informed, he insisted on pointing out that for a young girl to wander about the street in nothing but her shift was a breach of the proprieties and that it must not happen again. But the governor departed, and Lizaveta was left as she was. At last her father died, and she became even dearer to all the pious people in our town as an orphan. Indeed, everyone seemed to like her and even the boys in the streets did not tease her or molest her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous lot. She would walk into strange houses and no one drove her out; on the contrary, everyone tried to be nice to her and give her a penny. If she were givne a penny, she would take it and at once drop it into some alms-box in a church or outside the prison. If she were given a roll or a bun in the market, she would go away and give it to the first child she came across, or else stop one of the richest ladies in our town and hand it to her; and the ladies were very pleased to accept it. She herself lived only on black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop and sat down there, the proprietors took no notice of her, though there were costly goods and money lying about, for they knew that even if they put thousands of roubles before her and forgot all about it, she would not take a penny. [...]”</span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-64669794408287403502014-02-26T01:38:00.000+05:302014-02-26T02:28:18.902+05:30'The page is a touching' <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The touch screen - the screen where I come in contact with the outside runs deep. The depth beyond the touch far exceeds an
imagination of what an infinity can be. To imagine an infinite world all within
your touch. Possibilities that exist only through the mind and
implode <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBJhUDh_Sp4" target="_blank">silently</a>. With each swipe, touch,
tap and pinch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘The page is a touching, of my hand while it writes and your
hands while they hold the book. This touch is infinitely indirect, deferred,
but it continues as a slight, resistant, fine texture, the infinitesimal dust
of a contact everywhere interrupted and pursued. In the end, here and now, your
own gaze touches the same traces of characters as mine and you read me and I
write you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If I write I create sense-effects. I displace myself from
bodies. Exscription passes through writing and so we have to write from a place,
a body that we neither have nor are.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- Jean Luc Nancy, <i><a href="http://heidigustafson.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Nancy-Jean-Luc-Corpus.pdf" target="_blank">Corpus</a></i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Qnrbmu9GbAf2bvynMbJdrsFMWjSGwVyfpp2WcdpQ80QKeypGv4VrFcOR_Iw04mChmlCh0VJLLxuoUkxpSI00RRSvTUA_86dlcpMNlTHl_zDzSjZ7_xQOgHOro3JEBg2fYJAay2y0zPo6/s1600/IMG_20140226_001750.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Qnrbmu9GbAf2bvynMbJdrsFMWjSGwVyfpp2WcdpQ80QKeypGv4VrFcOR_Iw04mChmlCh0VJLLxuoUkxpSI00RRSvTUA_86dlcpMNlTHl_zDzSjZ7_xQOgHOro3JEBg2fYJAay2y0zPo6/s1600/IMG_20140226_001750.JPG" height="400" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">pencil outline of a detail from an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e" target="_blank">Ukiyo-e</a> woodblock print </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dancing is writing, writing in space, making space within
the opaque, hollowing it out so the inside and outside are no longer apart. The
inside-outing of an intestinal desire. Akka Mahadevi wraps herself in silk rays from the
sun, Krishna opens his mouth to show his mother an entire cosmos. The eye is
the crack whose infinite darkness saves brightness from staining - a suction
pump that deletes and erases all temporary files from<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U-tLn6Acno&list=PLPPCjdJO1OwHtxRldCRTNMhhe1BNkNoZd" target="_blank"> Random Access Memories. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A sincere body, acting behaving, dancing and imitating everyday
touches sincerely the ground it walks, tumbles and crawls upon. Writing about
the dead owl outside our house and its passing makes the owl die two times over. Thriving on the ink and paper or the incandescent glow of the laptop
screen and its flickering letters, the white feathers reappear on the grey
belly of the owl, electrocuted by the electric pole by the street outside our
house. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A body is perhaps made by its documentary. It lives, it dies, it breathes when it has been written in the world of others. A lone human on
the planet might as well be a plant or an insect or the wind?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘But it was in vain that I lingered beside the hawthorns –
breathing in their invisible and unchanging odour, trying to fix it in my mind,
losing it, recapturing it, absorbing myself in the rhythm which disposed the
flowers here and there with a youthful light-heartedness , and at intervals as
unexpected as certain intervals in music – they went on offering the same charm
in inexhaustible profusion but without letting me delve any more deeply, like
those melodies which one can play a hundred times in succession without coming
any nearer to their secret.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I turned away from them for a moment so as to be able to
return to them afresh.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- Proust, <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7178" target="_blank">Swann's Way , In Search of Lost Time</a></i> </span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-90101442136565777702014-01-16T01:22:00.003+05:302014-01-16T01:25:23.528+05:30a fetish for the manuscript<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The handwriting has come a long way. The letter, the outline of letters and the sentences that churn out of the pen as a grandmother writes a letter to her granddaughter or an eccentric makes notes in his diary with his pencil. Here a small walk through manuscript lane. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(in the order of mention)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Audrey Hepburn</b> wrote back to Kubrick in round wobbly letters with what looks like a blunt fat pencil, just like her big round dreamy eyes, polite and stern. The writing permeates through a page along with the smudges of sweaty fingers flipping through them, ages after they have been written. That or the air conditioned humidity controlled glass casings of a gallery like Intensive Care Units maintain the lines on permanent ventilators, resuscitated in cycles, like<b> Mira Schendel's</b> graphite on rice paper, the ECG of these lines rising and falling like a restless summer ocean . <b>Da Vinci</b> found comfort in writing through the mirror while <b>Dostoesvky</b> often lost his sentences into solemn faces of his heroes. And as <b>Vladimir Nabokov</b> had just finished colouring the butterfly from his garden, it flew and planted itself on the window sill of a far away Bengali mansion as as<b> Rabindranath Tagore</b> allowed his pen to consume his page and his words completely.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pJcjBZ2UUr1Wmj7JZOR6lMqbbEcnJSiVLmSAp4LRYjz2XsiR79HqW7MkFXdY53PD9LymDviNjQPjSB6BX8RdO2LNZR6bL-nLcHyhoGkgUxEhkyuXE5RmOMLls5eD3kySF0sxR6-XEc7H/s1600/da+vince+writing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pJcjBZ2UUr1Wmj7JZOR6lMqbbEcnJSiVLmSAp4LRYjz2XsiR79HqW7MkFXdY53PD9LymDviNjQPjSB6BX8RdO2LNZR6bL-nLcHyhoGkgUxEhkyuXE5RmOMLls5eD3kySF0sxR6-XEc7H/s1600/da+vince+writing.png" height="358" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQl8BTZeOA5Z5oxG_4RxfxCml5Vl0Bh2ZC3KgT7LKWDCU5gdlJBcX4igmjemxZ2fxLsJ_0mTNtldGjBQlzC-BvooxzHAiCE2w5ERQ7_CUVKBj0rXHS0AO5LGnB4JYG98BWJE5n0jPcdO4M/s1600/DosteovskyDoodles1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQl8BTZeOA5Z5oxG_4RxfxCml5Vl0Bh2ZC3KgT7LKWDCU5gdlJBcX4igmjemxZ2fxLsJ_0mTNtldGjBQlzC-BvooxzHAiCE2w5ERQ7_CUVKBj0rXHS0AO5LGnB4JYG98BWJE5n0jPcdO4M/s1600/DosteovskyDoodles1.png" height="640" width="440" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_bAiWnnedwyBp4lxWS-E5TD0RnVbvF4XyYSsChg4vV8EwrLmQa5V_d09Y8zjjV_4kH1LSILfmWVYo0ECv9sMajRNGH59G9ecMH3DtnzltutBqvMxOOo2v7HLKpyO0oUtgeHge0zmA6P7/s1600/NabokovInscription3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_bAiWnnedwyBp4lxWS-E5TD0RnVbvF4XyYSsChg4vV8EwrLmQa5V_d09Y8zjjV_4kH1LSILfmWVYo0ECv9sMajRNGH59G9ecMH3DtnzltutBqvMxOOo2v7HLKpyO0oUtgeHge0zmA6P7/s1600/NabokovInscription3.jpg" height="640" width="456" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVIdlH1XqHh7FDk9aeFYskr7NDOAUH0THAvkF-0055NvvQUankRuofUiHR1_KzP7DDsOvxKbfG7Wu8STKQcu3F1yyTqrc75AZw4o1w-VtXi2vZAiABapVKnPkWrmFPr6igKx-i9Q8Kdbh/s1600/tumblr_mcmtf3qcyg1r1gqaco1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVIdlH1XqHh7FDk9aeFYskr7NDOAUH0THAvkF-0055NvvQUankRuofUiHR1_KzP7DDsOvxKbfG7Wu8STKQcu3F1yyTqrc75AZw4o1w-VtXi2vZAiABapVKnPkWrmFPr6igKx-i9Q8Kdbh/s1600/tumblr_mcmtf3qcyg1r1gqaco1_500.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">[all images sourced from google]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"># interesting link - <a href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/" target="_blank">Digitised manuscripts of the British Library</a></span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-14985346104189738722013-11-25T03:41:00.001+05:302013-11-25T03:57:05.936+05:30Deposing the listener<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'Are you speaking to me?' asks a frightened youngster to the middle-aged man sitting across her in the tube-train in London. He has been looking in her direction for fifteen minutes now, but not at her. She frowns and hides behind the novel in her hand. He continues his speak. He is speaking animatedly of colonial imports and exports from Jakarta, Indonesia and trade sea routes unacknowledged by historians of the imperial colonies. This man would be just another stranger going to work this ordinary morning, newspaper in hand if it weren't for this little detail. - that he is speaking to no-one in particular with devoted attention. The row of commuters sitting along him and opposite him become increasingly edgy and shifty from behind their book shields and tabloid shields. He would go on even when the train empties at the next station and I walk away feeling disturbed and unsettled by this incident. Consensus would conclude that such behaviour is aberrant. He must obviously be insane. This man was having a 'conversation' with the entire imagined people in the train coach, equally and unconditionally - a conversation where himself was the only person he was talking with yet is his thoughts were on offer to the 'all' that he was not speaking to. It makes me think of expressions of soliloquys and the vulnerable face of human expression that it brings to the fore. The soliloquy is often used as a theatrical technique to give the audience insight into the actor's thoughts while not being heard by the characters on stage. Imagine this theatrical trope trickling out of the stage and into everyday life where t</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">he listener is deposed and dispositioned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The word <a href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/selfie">'Selfie</a>' was declared the word of the year 2013 by Oxford dictionary. Self-timed photographs and selfies in the digital age seem be non-instituionalised familial descendants of the self portraits of artists we are so familiar with, be it Van Gogh or Amrita Shergill or Pushpamala N in present times. Selfies also speak with the similar unconditional command of the soliloquy. You don't wait for an audience - you are your own audience within your urgent condition.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Soliloquists.<br />Images from left to right: Screenshots from <i>Autumn Sonata</i>(1978) Liv Ullman , Ingrid Berman., <i>Persona</i> (1966) Liv Ullman, Portrait - Frida Kahlo<br /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">[Late Latin </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">sōliloquium</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">= Latin </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">sōl(us)</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> only, sole</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> + </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">loqu(ī)</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> to speak]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ingmar Bergman in his films <i>Autumn Sonata</i>(1978) and <i>Persona</i>(1966), makes his woman characters (brilliantly played by Liv Ullman, Bibi Anderson and Ingrid Bergman) engage in long, tumultuous soliloquies before the camera. The camera becomes the petrified spectator, as we watch and listen to the characters speak their most internal thoughts aloud naturally and circumstantially. Through the camera we witness them speak to no-one in particular yet to every-one. There is freedom from the tyranny of reciprocity in the narrative solely driven by unleashed moments of speaking to the void. Characters bathe in their own aura, after the ebb of hysterical deliriums, mostly from stubborn minds. ( The words 'aural' and 'aura' are in this matter not so far from each other. The soliloquy exists on that fine line that separates the etymology of the two words i.e a perception by listening in the former and a perception possible without listening in the latter.)</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiO11safeugGTd9X0p4IFDYynj5yh0fc8ZAKBxcMD9pTvlVzvXACz0fr0rhqvCHRUVRwa5VOGraMzJP-L7p-_CfYMGe2_B6fQlxno2wkBldb5KO8321yWagAHQ4QkdFQAsil7J0-namCl/s1600/monologue1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiO11safeugGTd9X0p4IFDYynj5yh0fc8ZAKBxcMD9pTvlVzvXACz0fr0rhqvCHRUVRwa5VOGraMzJP-L7p-_CfYMGe2_B6fQlxno2wkBldb5KO8321yWagAHQ4QkdFQAsil7J0-namCl/s640/monologue1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Confronted by a person who doesn't care if you existed as their audience but at the same time whose being entirely depended on it, the listener is put into the most precarious of positions. We are taunted, dismissed and captivated. We exist precisely through our absence in the speaker's voice. In this moment of nakedness, no pretension, no protocol, no courtesy defends us from them - the soliloquists. <i>Persona</i> embodies this stubborn mind's wrath - when one chooses to speak/ not/ listen/ not/ talk/ not/ exist/ not/ react/ not/ remember/ not/ forget/ not/ record.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Woody Allen's latest film <i>Blue Jasmine</i>(2013) poignantly and eerily hinges on the image of Jasmine speaking to herself in delirious states. Succumbing to a traumatic past, she is entangled in a mental time warp, a kind of seizure ( allegorically in sync with the economic seizure of many countries at present ) that rewinds, forwards and tries to change the course of events in the past mentally but is ultimately condemned to exist within a looped soliloquy. The stranger sitting on the park bench next to Jasmine silently gets up and walks away as the camera edges away too, leaving Jasmine staring infinitely across and beyond the camera.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The silently clicked self-photograph is one small channel to this internal ebb - an acknowledgement of those modestly immodest times when you realize that 'this' right now, right here needs to be inscribed. You get over the inhibition of judgemental eyes and set your camera on a timer, find a suitably high ledge to place it on, and run back to position yourself within your inscription. The narrative is internalised. The listener is successfully made dispensable in the internal moment and pushed out into the every-one/no-one sphere, which is often social media - facebook/ twitter/ blog. This act gains strength in its willingness to reveal a weak moment in an increasingly singular world. Personal records get made by the second by this accumulative uploading of anonymous faces inscribed within their memorable moments. A vast <i>tableau vivant</i> emerges of rather vulnerable and helpless individuals battling their soliloquies where internal distances further away as physical distances collapse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'Are you listening to me?' </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_mhtjmdZb6u8NNp28r-nK3Pn3vuM0zL9Z0EBRyY9iHs0y9NS_1kf9yBln6vqbxNFh3hqmqY8Jxrrs-npRDBtSuSX8hMcgqtVfNt9DJCym6utcTJf3BqDFkcjTEeLnENh7EN4QnfC_Aeh/s1600/IMG_9146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_mhtjmdZb6u8NNp28r-nK3Pn3vuM0zL9Z0EBRyY9iHs0y9NS_1kf9yBln6vqbxNFh3hqmqY8Jxrrs-npRDBtSuSX8hMcgqtVfNt9DJCym6utcTJf3BqDFkcjTEeLnENh7EN4QnfC_Aeh/s320/IMG_9146.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Canon Self-timer - 10 seconds. Clicked at 3.17pm on Sunday, 24.11.13. <br />Time to resume position - 6 seconds. Time to think - 4 seconds.<br /> [interiors] London, U.K </span></td></tr>
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<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 32px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">PS: 'I dispose of you by being intimate and impersonal[..]' - Gertrude Stein</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> #interesting read - <a href="http://www.ubu.com/papers/andrews_stein.html">Bruce Andrews - Reading Language , reading Gertrude Stein</a> </span></span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-7085322838888033642013-10-28T18:31:00.001+05:302013-10-28T20:09:41.981+05:30Work of sight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbaNyUSgG_Cw-SOcQRYHqHrTubD4g6rMhPXwsE3SelhTX17_eS61vBmr7v4oHhwhgzorasJz6BT4LcyUPxi7lfahToLtNIKm1_i26SO_rb91IB6NDJdL0gA_bAebMfUzM5Zpv2eWee-tp/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-10-13-19h16m15s195.png" imageanchor="1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbaNyUSgG_Cw-SOcQRYHqHrTubD4g6rMhPXwsE3SelhTX17_eS61vBmr7v4oHhwhgzorasJz6BT4LcyUPxi7lfahToLtNIKm1_i26SO_rb91IB6NDJdL0gA_bAebMfUzM5Zpv2eWee-tp/s320/vlcsnap-2013-10-13-19h16m15s195.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jean Luc Godard in<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="text-align: left;">Les plages d'Agne</span></span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">s</span>- as seen through Agnes Varda's eyes, by me</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Agnes Varda reminisces how Godard gave her the rare privilege of letting her see him without his famed sunglasses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"I loved his beautiful eyes and his cinema"</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This image is a special moment for me as I look at a pair of eyes that I have only mostly seen through or shared a vision with. Being confronted with the eyes of the seeker whose vision you have comfortably shared, through his camera is almost like coming face to face with an alter-reflection , a moment of suspense undone in a film noir.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Godard in this image may as well not be looking, or looking at someplace else, beyond and far behind me. The distant gaze is both projected outside of him and back into his sight . Its like a mirror that reflects the distance it sees. The dark pupils are opaque and yet piercing, infinite and zero at the same time. Staring into the zero or '<i>shunya</i>' (more complex Sanskrit translation for the 'nought') is at the same time gazing into the infinite, constantly battling the limits of a horizon and wanting to see more.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Inconnue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Inconnue.jpg" width="238" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">L'inconnue de la Seine ( 1880's)</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Inconnue_de_la_Seine">The Unknown woman of the Seine</a> , <i>L'inconnue de la Seine</i> , whose death mask became an inspiration for many literary works and speculations is also an image of a woman who could be seeing into the distance, despite her death; a</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> state of forced blindness despite sight where the slightly bulging pupils behind the eyelids perhaps are an indication of the eyes open even when they are closed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial; text-align: left;">मरने के बाद भी आँखें खुली रहीं , आदत जो पड़ गयी </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial; text-align: left;"> थीं तेरे इंतज़ार की </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Faiz Ahmed Faiz </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">French writer, literary theorist Maurice Blanchot in his <i><a href="http://politicsandforms.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/blanchot-thomas-the-obscure.pdf">Thomas the Obscure</a></i>, 1941, speaks fantastically of this dichotomous sight</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>"It was night itself. Images which constituted its darkness inundated him. He saw nothing, and far from being distressed, he made this absence of vision the culmination of his sight. Useless for seeing, his eye tool on extraordinary proportions, developed beyond measure, and stretching out on the horizon, let the night penetrate its centre in order to receive the day from it. And so, through this void, it was sight and the object of sight which mingled together. Not only did this eye which saw nothing apprehend something, it apprehended the cause of its vision. It saw as object that which prevented it from seeing. Its own glance entered into it as an image, just when this glance seemed the death of all image."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The blinding turmoil of the eye seeing into absolute darkness is an exhilarating moment- one of hitting the opaque surface beyond comfortable reach; of encountering a resistant world of images refusing to reveal itself as anything else but itself. The pendulum keeps oscillating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">#interesting read - Merleau Ponty on <a href="http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/AdvancedIntegratedArts/ReadingsAIA/Merleau-Ponty_The%20Primacy%20of%20Perception.pdf">The Primacy of Perception</a> </span><br />
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-81639244098317688612013-10-24T05:55:00.004+05:302013-10-28T18:57:32.442+05:30Beginnings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The potential of beginnings is on my mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A dispersal of points. A setting forth. A series of beginnings and no ends- perhaps a
most precarious method of functioning today. False alarms, panic starts, carburators that
refuse to ignite but are in the continuous labour of combustion. Bollywood films with only first halves ( which would spell paradise for the scriptwriter!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In one of Edward Said’s earlier books, <a href="http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-05937-4/">Beginnings: Intentions and methods</a>, he suggested that the literary form of the novel was a step towards a manner of institutionalization
[my reading] of the story teller. The novel involves a pre-disposition - the
writer who consciously chooses a method of expansion to tell a story. Either
the story begins with an intention of being a long one or is an episode that
promises to churn more. Either way, a potential is realised in the ‘beginning’ and
harnessed further. What of the storyteller who is not keen to know the end, or
the one who has foreseen the end too soon and would rather not execute this foresight?
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are left with a folder full of empty word files, others
with just two lines or paragraphs, each carrying immense possibilities and a writer
who is content in creating these moments of possibility in the unwritten and eventually
never writes. </span><br />
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"A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order."</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Serpiente_alquimica.jpg/603px-Serpiente_alquimica.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Serpiente_alquimica.jpg/603px-Serpiente_alquimica.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://paulbourke.net/geometry/mobius/mobius2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://paulbourke.net/geometry/mobius/mobius2.gif" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
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I came across this quote as a status update on Facebook a few
days ago - "Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor the
dead. For death is certain to one who is born; to one who is dead, birth is
certain; therefore, thou shalt not grieve for what is unavoidable." <span style="text-align: justify;">These images of the cyclical are all too familiar. What begins ends, what ends, begins. But what if nothing ends and it is completely vital to shift gears and begin elsewhere just to save yourself from one kind of endlessness and begin another. A violent proposition of constantly spiralling out. An asceticism that pushes towards discomfort and constantly escapes the comfort of its routine.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/668/overrides/new-insights-ancient-city-harappa-site_66811_600x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/668/overrides/new-insights-ancient-city-harappa-site_66811_600x450.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The archaeological site is a site of projected possibilities into both the future and the past. An end point and a beginning at once, waiting, pausing and pushing the moment of the action just a few more centuries away. Like Apu who decides to miss his train and stay at home one extra day.<span style="text-align: left;">[</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ey6fxcmS95s#t=1909" style="text-align: left;">Aparajito</a><span style="text-align: left;"> (1956) Dir: Satyajit Ray]</span></span></div>
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"Imagining oneself as a child is like running backwards. Imagining oneself ancient is funny, like a dirty joke." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Agnes Varda </span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;">The image below is a frame from Agnes Varda’s film <i>Les plages d'Agnes </i>(the Beaches of Agnes) (2008). </span></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJGRY478kY37qytoEvMxmq1lUUE-RmOqArgzbJafbZ23YI9FRfWybTzdJjI211UzFsNuztxzj_819isU5vF0NgnuLGUFqQCiL7asE655e6moylXQ3tzeIaiGg50-3ZJSlbRn_r2UWCz958/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-10-13-18h29m55s60.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJGRY478kY37qytoEvMxmq1lUUE-RmOqArgzbJafbZ23YI9FRfWybTzdJjI211UzFsNuztxzj_819isU5vF0NgnuLGUFqQCiL7asE655e6moylXQ3tzeIaiGg50-3ZJSlbRn_r2UWCz958/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-10-13-18h29m55s60.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a long time I struggled with this image that has ever since been my obsession. I see in my imagination, the trapeze artist swaying from one trapeze to another, tossing into the sky further and further until one fine day managing to hook onto it with an umbrella and hang in suspension until further notice. The umbrella has a pencil point with which the trapeze artist can write on the sky, draw tails and signatures of acrobat-kin. But the imagination was in a spasm of trying to actualize an impossible image. The sky and the universe as being an ever expanding material that refused to show itself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday , while wandering in the Science museum in London, I found this. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBphhS_SUNnXWX_Skb9atB_ka_GbhIfLXKqHFX1QoS9nUApGGeOa8cm016hft2vwM23wqrGrxaOo7753d8y_MNeedWLFRaf4sQtuay11eKHXpBcY1NUUYs57lu1elnidS9S0_b7zepGk4Z/s1600/IMG_8706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBphhS_SUNnXWX_Skb9atB_ka_GbhIfLXKqHFX1QoS9nUApGGeOa8cm016hft2vwM23wqrGrxaOo7753d8y_MNeedWLFRaf4sQtuay11eKHXpBcY1NUUYs57lu1elnidS9S0_b7zepGk4Z/s320/IMG_8706.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The caption reads as follows: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Glass Sphere</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This rare example of a celestial sphere belonged to Stephen Demainbray, a lecturer whose collection becae amalgamated with the royal collection. It was designed by Robert Long in 1742. The Instrument was used to demonstrate both the real and the apparent motion of the heavens by turning either the Earth globe or the glass globe. The glass globe is engraved with the major constellations.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here was an image of the world and its
sky- with a beginning, with a circumference. The glass globe as the sky helped me stand outside of it. Made it possible for me to imagine my trapeze artist finally having a surface
to fall into. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DeumyOzKqgI">Skyfall </a>was within reach. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The moment of labour is the one suspened in between the two bars - mid–air when she turns and begins her next
journey to the other trapeze, without a safety net below her. It is the work
of a beginning. A moment of courage that begins by the momentum accrued by her self set in motion by the trapeze pushed by the friend on the other side, her acrobat-kin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beginning now. </span></div>
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Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-16467862177008155722012-06-08T23:07:00.002+05:302012-06-10T22:38:15.192+05:30Apichatpong's Tropical Pulse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWRx5Kwo2ekmjD3uS3zamxTk0CNW8auNa15RI0qtz_gyhwXX89UX3L1C2MOEhv7VgVQabhkjTznuuqxt8vy2ZocVKlP4d_vK9SedFa69qjXhgtonyKqGwH_spdPt8jGbgM9ADjrKr0VG8T/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-06-08-22h59m42s78.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWRx5Kwo2ekmjD3uS3zamxTk0CNW8auNa15RI0qtz_gyhwXX89UX3L1C2MOEhv7VgVQabhkjTznuuqxt8vy2ZocVKlP4d_vK9SedFa69qjXhgtonyKqGwH_spdPt8jGbgM9ADjrKr0VG8T/s400/vlcsnap-2012-06-08-22h59m42s78.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I discovered Apichatpong Weerasethakul in my global art
cinema class taught by Dr. Mark Betz. We were shown his film , ‘Syndromes and a
century’ and were left quite disoriented at the end of the film. After then, having seen Tropical Malady and
Mysterious object at noon , it is only but evident that this filmmaker has his
emotional quotient very deeply rooted with his people in Thailand. Apichatpong’s
narratives seem to have the lightness of a grasshopper, effortlessly moving from
one figment to another, yet , binding all these figments in a close network of
emotional ties, which weave the film
into a overwhelming mood piece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">While watching his recent short , Ashes, shot using the Lomokino
, which premiered at Cannes this year, the most eloquent aspect of the film
that struck me was his keen ear to the sounds of memory. The visual aesthetic
of the flashy overexposed film lends itself the hazy misty air of
transformative contingent recollections. The dog on leash, the ambitious pig in the sty, the sounds of birds in the distance, of
rustling palm leaves on a breezy coastal afternoon, of steaming rice in the
kitchen , and a stroll in the evening, all these little details are intuitively
captured. The film gradually shifts into craftwork when the filmmaker overlays
the same ‘home’ footage with digitized aberrational sounds that echo a certain
kind of appropriated pulse of technology. Ashes , performs a simple act of
placing a finger on your wrist to place your pulse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A similar pulse ran through his first film, Mysterious
Object at Noon, which uses both enacted and documentary style of filmmaking ,
to present a collage of deeply personal narratives that evolve around myths and
folklores of Thailand, and emerge out of a vernacular sensibility . There is a
sense of nostalgia in every fragment , a revocation of intimacy and
helplessness. The mise en scene has touches of tactile everyday domesticity. The
film which explores a narrative based on the game of spontaneous story building
, which the surrealists indulged in, therefore , opens up the margins of the
film. The film makes room to allow moments of collapse of the control of the
camera. The pace of the film is as if the whole two hours of viewing were
drowned into a time warp bubble, the heart beats of the audience seem to race
beyond the pulse of the filmic experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The story of a mysterious object which turns into a mysterious boy who is said to have killed his
teacher , gains life, like a local myth, through its renewal and retelling
through various people . It turns into a seed to develop different modes of
performing the story , while at the same time allowing for spontaneous filmic
siestas . The element of magic , of course, is the tiger , which enters the
plot towards the end, into the hitherto
human story , which pushes the realm of the narrative into becoming a fairy
tale, the storytellers being curious and inventive school kids. The tiger finds
again an important part to play in his ‘Tropical Malady ‘, again resorting to a
dispersed thread of narration of folklore. In ‘Syndromes and a century’, the
vast slow camera pan around the different urban and pastoral locations , and
elongated time lapses generously given for the spaces themselves to emote and
take forward the film’s mood, reflect a keen sensitivity towards spatial
emotive topographies , that perhaps could have come from Apichatpong’s primary
training as an architect prior to his education in fine arts and films.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">His
regular video art pieces and shorts, which have been produced religiously over
the years , alongside his long features , seem to help keep agile his film
craft and inventive fervor. Apichatpong’s cinema seems to resonate with a
certain wisdom . A wisdom which is nurtured by the international
fraternity and as apparent by the widespread press coverage, is celebrated as a
unique coming together of a global and a regional sensibility in the filmmaker.
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</div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-35858832886629981692012-06-05T18:05:00.000+05:302012-06-05T18:06:23.964+05:30Daily visitor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He comes and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">sits on that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">little nervous
tree<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">with no roots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last summer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the tree would
bear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">fragile pink<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">paper flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">now it seems
bored.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He has little <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">humourous wings
that dance <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">as he croons <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">deep and adamant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The firing hearth
next door <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">wafts up an
endearing smoke,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">from a distant
memory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">of a personal
place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">His uncertain
neck <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">pulsates to the
beat<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">of the hapless
city <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">around it,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Twisting and
turning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">like a restless
baby's wrist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The fresh henna
on her hand <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">smells a deep
orange, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">finds voice in
him,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">strikes roots in
the tree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In an anchored
hour of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">sunseived shade<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the tree shivers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in the warm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">afternoon breeze. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-82690556881460927592012-03-11T22:55:00.004+05:302012-03-11T23:22:29.957+05:30Evening Walk<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikewn0E21ezJaHB2KX2S2oRpH0MVqOMqSsXNBJ3HhOFLFsfQ6MWu2b4KcYJPwol7GYlPzrh9MGIgusQYfs0SqXsN77WrQ9ZS7r_ITZwpjaUpNCShivyzeo7vv03tIRKo72V5Vhp_cU7Hub/s1600/100_5966.JPG"><span ><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 188px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikewn0E21ezJaHB2KX2S2oRpH0MVqOMqSsXNBJ3HhOFLFsfQ6MWu2b4KcYJPwol7GYlPzrh9MGIgusQYfs0SqXsN77WrQ9ZS7r_ITZwpjaUpNCShivyzeo7vv03tIRKo72V5Vhp_cU7Hub/s200/100_5966.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718697473308056994" /></span></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Evening sands, billowing in the breeze, were creating a little storm in between her toes. It was still a long way till dusk set in, and she had walked long, almost frantically, trying to shake off the stray birds of thought that kept nestling in her mind. Walking was an automatic intuition.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; "><span ><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>So she set forth on her way back, her blue cloth bag on her shoulder still swinging with little crumbs of sand grains and broken bangles. She seemed oblivious to the sun that was setting behind her. She was looking forward to meeting a new friend whom she hoped to run into , on the main beach. Having made no rendezvous promises or appointments, they had allowed themselves a small door to a serendipitous thrill . <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; "><span ><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Their first encounter had been like an old petal found in the yellowing pages of a favorite unread novel. Without a beginning, without an end, she had chanced out of humming voices and salt water reveries, just like a fading fragrant petal emerging from floating words and images of the book. As the familiar stranger had exchanged formal greetings and set forth on her way, the wide eyed five year old had called out her name from behind her back, ran up to her and grasped her hand with absolute authority, and taken her to the sea. This new curiously towering ‘Akka’ was her license to play with the waves, and she was not going to let go of her so soon. And so, the next day, with excited anticipation, Akka’s long beach walks had promises of turning eventful. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; "><span ><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The waves seemed to have more white foam that day.As the sun set far behind her, wallowing in neglect , Akka spotted her little ball of fire in a distance. There she was, running in circles around her father. He , was sitting with a hunch , complacently distant in thought from this little satellite that was taking its roundoos, almost like a ritual. Her little palms clenched tight, arms outstretched she seemed like she was on her own roller coaster ride in neverland. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >On that day, Prathama was wearing blue cotton shorts and a white smugly fitting blouse with a playboy bunny in pink glitter on her chest. She was careful not to venture too near the water. She harboured an illicit attraction towards the waves, which she was not allowed to tread into alone. It was a love hate relationship with the sea. She could curse it, embrace it, caress it, kick it, throw imaginary stones at it, play hide and seek with it, and it would never let her down. It would always come back. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >‘ You are late! You don’t keep up your promises!’ , she complained as she ran towards Akka , who she saw approaching in the distance. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Akka bent down and Prathama clung to her red checked shirt with moist sandy salty hands. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >‘ I’m going to walk till that end of the beach’, said Akka, pointing towards the hillock at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >‘ Go and come back quickly!’ , grimaced Prathama , as she ran back to circling her <i>appa</i>. Midway , however , she had a change of plan , and ran back behind Akka, and tugging at her shirt, said ‘ I’ll also come with you.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >So the two of them set off to take a walk right up to Ramateertha. Prathama dint know where she was going . She had just wholeheartedly surrendered to this two day old stranger. However, distances had conspired to deceive the five year old. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Amidst fellow kids, building sand hills , and turning into objects of Prathama’s curious envious glances, and past the town’s housewives, with sarees tucked up at the waist, who had come for the daily evening walks , two trails of footsteps made their way. It is ‘walking ’ , not ‘walk’ corrected Prathama. She seemed to be present forever in the present continuous. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >It had been two weeks. Whispers were making rounds of the little temple town. Mabla was nowhere to be seen; not hanging around the regular Maitri juice centre with his friends in the evenings nor at the late night arom boards games at Sanna bele Mabu’s place. Mabla’s gregarious laughter that usually resounded in the town every time he passed Rathabeedhi on his noisy motorbike, had suddenly fallen silent. The reporter of the town surmised the turn of face as a result of cynicism. ‘Mabla has turned cynical’, he said to peers. So it was on everybody’s lips ; of fellow shopkeepers and grocery store owners, of the retired schoolteacher who spent every afternoon sitting on his front porch <i>katte</i> , fanning himself with a Chinese fan that an odd beach hopper left behind as a token of appreciation for being given legible directions to Om beach, and of the Rajasthani boy who spoke impeccable <i>kannada </i>and sold his disposable beachwear for no less than double the market price. ‘Mabla has become cynical , <i>maraithi</i>. He doesn’t talk to us anymore’. ‘Did something happen? Did some friend betray him? Is he hiding something from us?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >A town would not remain silent , if one of its own goes silent. Many phone conversations featured the recent face-turn of Mabla. ‘ You remember Mabla? The loud large hearted man with the cute little daughter ? I don’t know what has happened to him, he has turned cynical since last week!’ <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >What the word ‘cynical’ really meant did not really matter to the rumour hoppers. Its sounded mysterious and that sufficed. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Along the shore, the two dotted figures made their way . Prathama and her Akka were now somewhere past the main beach, as the rock divided the shore into a smaller lesser inhabited beach, <i>sanna bele</i> . The little boys with their sand castles were left behind. The saree clad walking women had far drifted away in the opposite direction , almost in a gleeful joy of disappearing into the horizon , if only temporarily , before they get back into their domestic dens. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >The waves were turning grey. The evening sun , quite without warning had slipped out of the frame and let the clouds take over a magnetic magenta sky. Evenings were confusing by the beachside. One moment, it would be a feisty celebration of light in the sky and the faces of the town would turn golden and crisp with a sepia aura .The next moment, the town was an abandoned child , reveling in the momentary nostalgia of the feast they just witnessed, and trying hard to remain cheerful in it , even as the sea turned grey and black almost helplessly. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >It was past sundown and the grey threathened Prathama. Suddenly , she looked up and saw no one around her. Who was this tall girl , she had come along with? She dint know her. Where was her <i>appa</i>? Where was the town, the noise , the children? She looked down at her feet, and her tiny chappals suddenly started to feel like they were shrinking. She saw Akka , now, pointing towards a rocky shortcut that led to the path to Ramateerth, which was where they were headed. But something felt fishy. It seemed like she had been walking all day , and yet, Akka was saying they had some more distance to go! How could that be possible?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >And slowly almost without her knowledge, she started whining .First mildly and then emphatically. She realized she had to act, she must speak out, that she couldn’t be taken for a ride , by her strange tall friend. The unfamiliarity started caving in on her. The beach looked monstrous. She stopped dead in her track. She wouldn’t walk anymore. She just stopped and sat down in her place, hoping her resistance would be heeded. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Akka, was now , helplessly confused. She had no choice but to have to go to the end point as she had to run an errand for her grandmother. So , now with her little bundle of gravity that had planted herself to the ground, she tried negotiating. ‘Just a little bit more and Il get you an ice cream’ , ‘Just a little more and we’ll soon see your <i>appa</i>’ , and so she bent down and picked up Prathama , who was now belligerent . She tried to wriggle her way out of her grasp but Akka was holding on firmly. And then in a fit of sheer helplessness, she caught hold of the elastic necklace that Akka was wearing, which at the moment looked magnified with its round green and brown beads, and slapped it down on the road. Akka was under attack , quiet out of the blue, an unexpected turn of mood she had found herself in. Picking up her necklace from the ground, they lumbered their way up the temple. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >At the gate , Prathama refused to budge yet again. In a fit of desperation, Akka took the absurdly irresponsible decision of leaving Prathama behind at the entrance alone, as she ran up to the waterfount to fill her bottle with mineral water for her grandma ; all the while the sound of Prathama’s loud wailing ‘<i>Appa, Appa, Appa’</i> following her in the background. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >The nightmare was only getting worse by the minute for Prathama. So as much as she had hoped her necklace wrenching act would gain her some attention, to her horror , she now found herself, all alone on the steps of Ramateertha , as she saw her only hopeful savior run away from her! She could only wail louder. It felt like a moment of disconnect from the entire time line of the sleepy town. Although just for a couple of minutes ( but minutes can turn into eternities) , this little girl was synced out of her time, and placed in the timeless frame of an evening made of lonely strangers, grey and passionless. Like a sticky green leaf lying incoherently on a corrugated tin roof, Prathama quivered as the chilly evening sea breeze made the ribbons in her pony tails dance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >There was a little wound on her elbow, from her recent fall in her recently concreted courtyard. Raising her little stubby fingers to her face to wipe out her eyes , tears and kohl made a puzzling pattern with the lines on her palm. The four minutes , that Prathama spent, on the steps of Ramateertha , were like a lost piece of film spliced with a new film reel. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Akka was back; the little lone girl hadn’t been abandoned after all, there was a glimmer through the grey. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Lifting up her little screaming bundle , Akka now, made her way as quickly as she could , down the steps and back on the beach, now in a mad rush to get the daughter back with her separated father. Prathama was getting heavier by the step and the slender frame of Akka was exerting all its reserve of energy to carry this bundle back to its rightful people. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span > As they finally neared the main beach , it was dark. The faces had turned fuzzy. Here and there , were groups of townspeople extending their last moments on the beach, before they headed back in to their sultry deep homes. Peering keenly across the people sitting there, Mabla was nowhere to be found. Prathama had cried her throat hoarse, ‘<i>Appa, appa’</i> and refused to walk any further. She stayed put like a furious sage. She had been deceived by the uncanny ways of this suddenly formidable world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >Looking around for help, Akka recognized the familiar face of the retired postmaster who was sitting with his friends. He gave her an inquisitive look ,sympathetic at her plight. Akka asked him if he had seen Mabla anywhere and he replied saying maybe he was sitting a little further away , he hadn’t seen him .Trying hard to recall where exactly, they had left the morose stooping father back on the beach, Akka tried hard to figure out from amongst the blurring silhouettes seated in the shrouded evening , on the shore. The man was nowhere in the blurred strokes of that evening. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span >The little girl’s throat had gone soar, as her tears now started mixing with the rising tide and turning the sea a little more salty. Her fingernails dug into the sand, the black silicon from underneath, etching its way out through the gaps in between her fingers and making its way up to her eyes in place of her washed out kohl as another pair of eyes scanned the horizon , searching in vain for a figure in waiting ,and finally resting on a rising tide , that receded with a tiny <i>chappal</i> floating away into the dark distant. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in; "><span><span >***</span><span ><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 100%; font-weight: normal; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-87341050479343140082012-02-07T01:48:00.001+05:302012-02-07T01:50:19.636+05:30across the room<div><span >2 am </span></div><div><span >slumber trucks moan</span></div><div><span >white wash sprinkles</span></div><div><span >and lands on me like</span></div><div><span >lazy snowflakes </span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div><div><span >on the next bed</span></div><div><span >sleeps a girl</span></div><div><span >she came to me</span></div><div><span >two weeks ago.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div><div><span >her gentle breathing </span></div><div><span >is tense</span></div><div><span >she could be dreaming</span></div><div><span >perhaps</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div><div><span >but sitting across the room</span></div><div><span >at 2 am</span></div><div><span >i am searching for a way</span></div><div><span >to find out.</span></div><div><br /></div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-68432210856772591872011-09-26T12:19:00.008+05:302011-09-26T14:23:02.452+05:30Finger prints and soggy letters<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiryNEJLHJ1fiKq1IZ3Mc_1ZwguVPVL7Dp6EftZ-bsg9-uDlnuReZiVUdeFhiw5wAVVkU9whSosJCxYIfvJXK8QooB5swDEVKj5AIcNI9Z4h36LQMANfoxmllIsJ3GAzocuynNaZdDb7H8v/s1600/Image0704.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiryNEJLHJ1fiKq1IZ3Mc_1ZwguVPVL7Dp6EftZ-bsg9-uDlnuReZiVUdeFhiw5wAVVkU9whSosJCxYIfvJXK8QooB5swDEVKj5AIcNI9Z4h36LQMANfoxmllIsJ3GAzocuynNaZdDb7H8v/s200/Image0704.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656588405051477058" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span> </span>It feels surreal that time can be compacted through mental space despite physical distances. You wake up in Delhi and go to bed in Mumbai. Its been a year, it feels like ages, yet it feels like just yesterday , that I was here. The city seems to have turned timeless, like a constant frame through which people come and go like ants. The heart of Mumbai lies in the contrived domestic space which becomes the starting point for extrusions and explosions , that make the outside of the city the site of such an infusion of energy. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>The Gateway lies desolate. It doesn’t hog the light it deserves. Somehow, it seems like its grown aged and no longer interested in bearing mast for its city. The swarms of middle class Sunday crowd seem parasitic to the place. Each little world, a closed decadent cuccoon, trapped within the boundaries of the camera lens, which seems to be the sole witness and jury to the fact of their existence.They try to break free by riding on silver painted neon lit horse carriages. Try to escape the ground that they are so wary of, yet, the ride is momentary in its effect. The horses always bring them back to the same point where they started.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>She gets lost in the city. Her feet always need to move. Never on a standstill, they are automatically drawn towards the sea. Marine drive is Mumbai’s threshold into dreamspace. It marks an edge to a human constrained living and an extended threshold into the infinite sea beyond. It is the stage where the city distances itself from you and offers itself for your insatiate gaze. The urban proscenium sells the city to its customers who come willingly to be hypnotized by this edge. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>Shards of memory are strewn all over the city like little horcruxes. Figments of images, clinging onto crumbling concrete. The cellotaped apartments , seem to have lost the will to renew. The concrete dark and old , weeps and cries all over the suburbs. The patched up cracks on the dilapidated apartments grow like algae, like ugly magnifications of the dark thorns tucked within the minds of the domestic beings<span> </span>within. <span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I find myself taller, larger. The city is a child, looking up at me , tugging at the hem of my shirt,leaving behind grimy finger prints and soggy letters.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Mumbai, August 2011</span></i></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-27327034640711441562011-09-12T00:11:00.005+05:302011-09-12T00:51:50.050+05:30Remembering My dearest Ajju<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cbZvZ7_OBcdCdS2nx_FSHcNitW6_40Kvp5tQ4-IU8rfrsLJv3KhEu8QhYbYFYeCUekuJIpr5WQRjswTEVydGc-jmwI6_tSnCYNJYHJKzqi9x19BmRSL-sdJ5E-o9T6wm0810BPc0xvPc/s1600/stamp.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cbZvZ7_OBcdCdS2nx_FSHcNitW6_40Kvp5tQ4-IU8rfrsLJv3KhEu8QhYbYFYeCUekuJIpr5WQRjswTEVydGc-jmwI6_tSnCYNJYHJKzqi9x19BmRSL-sdJ5E-o9T6wm0810BPc0xvPc/s320/stamp.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651176963713474498" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span">( I am reposting this writeup i had written two years ago , having added a few more memories to the picture. Happy Birthday to my dearest Ajju ) </span></i> That afternoon comes back to me , when I went and sat by him on his bed and had a nap in his lap as his soft wrinkled hands patted my head. That vacation , I had got my walkman player, and <i>Ajju’</i>s favourite<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Marathi natya sangeeth</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>cassettes, which he used to listen to , from earphones. Every time, the earphone fell out of an ear, he used to call out, ‘Gonti!..” and I used to run to him and plug him back into his musical world. This was the first vacation I was spending in Gokarna alone. Having waved goodbye to <i>papa</i> , who left me with dear little grandma and grandpa, tears streamed down my eyes, as we sat in the verandah and darkness fell. Ajju would love listening to <i>bhajans</i> I sang. <span> </span>My voice choked as I sang ‘<i>dehi dehi sharade, gnyaanam dehi sarvade’,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; ">but soon it was fine, and I no longer felt frightened. Except now and then, when I came across a dark threatening corner or lightless room in the vast house, especially after sunset. I had never felt happier to greet the morning and the sun, as I did then.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; ">It was the last vacation I could spend with Ajju, because, on the November 14<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>early at two in the morning, we all had to say goodbye to Ajju. That year we (the family) stayed back after the funeral ceremonies , during<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>karthik poornima</i>. And we went to the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Deepotsava</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that happens every year in the Kotiteertha, the sacred tank.</span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">It was magical as hundreds of lamps reflected in the water along with a bright moon who seemed lost in all the celebration, and fireworks lit up the sky effusive with joy. It seemed a fitting goodbye to our dear grandpa. Last week, when I was back in Gokarna on my usual visit, I stayed back an extra day hoping to catch the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Deepotsava</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>karthik poornima</i>. But it is never like that first time, is it? However hard one tries to re-live past moments, it is never the same. Each time is a new time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">When I was there this time , I dug into the shelf in the study, which was full of books ( as is any shelf in our house) ; but this one almirah had a special taboo attached to it. Once long ago, I had ventured to open this very cupboard, and to my horror, there a was a tiny rat inside which ran right up my arm and jumping off my shoulder, scurried away victoriously! I was in a state of hysteria , as I ran and locked myself in my room and refused to come out , till the maid came and consoled me saying that she had taken care of it and it was safe to come out now. Later , the poor creature was a subject of my sympathy and I even wrote a small verse on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">So, well, after mustering courage , I opened it this time . Happy to see no moving tails or black beings inside. I found a whole range of books on culture, Leninism, Marxism, and the likes, which were from the local library. And each of them had markings in pencil , made by Ajju when he found certain passages or points which were<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>notable. And after long I felt I was in touch with him. I was reading the same passages, that he had read many years ago, and wondering what thoughts must have arisen in his mind then. The very awareness of this idea gave me an immense sense of peace. The signs one leaves behind, signs that remind us of a healthy living thinking mind, signs that give you solace when you need it, signs that give hope when you are in despair. Finding those books, inspired a new zeal , a new feeling of awareness and a bright feeling of joy at the very prospect of discovering things that are waiting to be .<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">One summer vacation , we had a digital camcorder with us. So I decided to record an interview with Ajju. I was in the sixth grade, a shy girl who wouldn’t talk. So , my father prompted me . I reluctantly asked . The question was ‘Do you still think there is no God?’ and I vaguely remember him giving an amused smile. I was amused at the unlikely moment , as these words tumbled out of my mouth, although fed by my father; perhaps, his curiosity found a voice in me. For me, then, Ajju came closest to the divine. And with his presence, there was always a ubiquitous sense of spiritual stability. He would sit out there on his easy chair, in the verandah and absorb us into him. More than a few times, with us children playing cricket in the courtyard, hitting bouncers now and then, he sportingly absorbed and ducked away tennis balls, too , which would bounce across his easy chair!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">I hear him tapping my head with his tender frail hands , slender long fingers, saying ‘<i>gontipor toh’</i> ( ‘that’s my little gonti’) , and tapping on the harmonium keys with<span> </span>nonchalant confidence. I hear his stories in his grainy voice. Every afternoon, I would sit adamantly in front of him , sinking into one of the easy chairs , my legs and hands dangling out like crab limbs, and waiting for him to start. And he would start, ‘Once upon a time , there was a king ( a<i> raaaya</i> )..’ ; always a <i>raaya</i> , with the occasional fisherman or farmer He was like a perennial fountain of stories for me. From him , I knew why the sea was salty, because a princess in some faraway castle had cried her heart out and her tears had turned into the ocean. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">He would tell me to concentrate only on the subjects I like in school, saying the rest will take care of themselves. Once, he had told me how minds are like good conductors and bad conductors, some minds take time to grasp knowledge, but have a great capacity to retain once learnt, while some others grasp quickly but let go of the knowledge as quickly. And that had put me into a very troubled state of dilemma , later that day , as to which kind I belonged to.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">I have memories of him walking up and down our front yard , in our old house , which still had its <i>katanjan</i> ( wooden trellises) and the tiled roof that let into the<span> </span>mysteriously dark kitchen a snatch of a morning ray through a glazed gap. Up and down the frontyard smelling of freshly shining cowdung, he walked, his walking stick, making a graceful gate of tip tap , in tune with his feet. This was when he no longer went out to the beach to take his legendary walking trail all the way up to Rudrapaada. I have heard from people, he would walk for phenomenal distances; he would walk everywhere, and that he would walk and read a book in his hand at the same time! I like to think that I’ve got the taste of walking and reading from him.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";color:#333333">Another random summer memory is when we had just reached Gokarna after a long bus journey from Mumbai( since we lived there then). My brother and me were very small. Before entering the house, we spotted Pashupathi, the neighbourhood boy, who was few years elder to my brother and his good friend, sitting on the <i>katte</i> next door. Excitedly , my brother waved and greeted him. Instead, Pashupathi just turned his back to us and went into his house. That perplexed me and my brother. Like an offended pampered child, I went and told this to Ajju. Instead of consoling me, he asked me to be patient, and give the boy some time to come around. We had come from the city, and maybe he felt left out seeing us. I hadn’t quite understood, why, Ajju had taken his side then. Now looking back, I see. Every time, we ‘city kids’ , hopped in for vacationing, there would be a phase of diffidence that Pashupathi, would be overcome with , perhaps arising from the fact that he lived in a small town.<span> </span>And then, after a few days, once he sensed that nothing had changed, and we were all still the same, he would get back to playing with us like usual. I feel grateful that Ajju took his side, that day. Pashupathi has grown up now, and comes everyday to our house to read the morning newspaper and now and then teach my grandma how to press the <span> </span>numbers in her mobile phone.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#333333"><span> </span>All the letters he wrote to us, me and my brother, are safe with me . Spontaneous limericks on us and advise on how we should read a lot , learn music, not fight, study well, and not worry much about subjects I dint like. In every letter, he never failed to say a little sorry for his handwriting, which he considered illegible. His handwriting in fact was like a mysterious codec to me , evolving in its own speed and design to become a script that could be read by a select few. Now I see my father’s writing follows the same trend. The explanation he gives is that the mind thinks faster than the hand’s capacity to catch up.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;line-height: 19.2pt; "><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#333333"><span> </span>I have known my grandfather as a grand daughter , but there is also the need to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>know him completely through his mind, through his ideas, through his writings. He seems an ocean. I am yet to learn to swim so I could delve into it. Remembering and missing my dearest Ajju , as he completes a hundred years of multitude.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; text-align:justify;line-height:19.2pt"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#333333"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6n6lNhooxGNgawOrHnRQ0OHC9JZ6mR7TwFCthVXx64JtUT1nhbXfIqCaapuTHRigwKG-8G8CI5EUJkB9b2e9kHvCyegAUKa364I9pSBl7FVFaQWBLIvn17C_eSIDABoS0QAeHsbsDWBe/s320/inv.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651175786637728802" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 220px; height: 320px; " /></span></span></p><div><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#333333"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:16.8pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: normal; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-89775775421861696402011-08-13T23:48:00.010+05:302011-08-14T00:02:44.804+05:30Ilkal reverie (contd..)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzgAhJtETgs0JubGq2GcUI3tGQiWoJI7gWwBlyySCVirvE8yVVHHsBJAWKWqNEQe2xOndgyCqKyvhCwPprCGgZqND86OtwqwOsrDHT3hymeawhDkEFVDA57-OnnYI74LP-KPXQRm6gEAp/s1600/badami.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzgAhJtETgs0JubGq2GcUI3tGQiWoJI7gWwBlyySCVirvE8yVVHHsBJAWKWqNEQe2xOndgyCqKyvhCwPprCGgZqND86OtwqwOsrDHT3hymeawhDkEFVDA57-OnnYI74LP-KPXQRm6gEAp/s320/badami.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640407896900438338" /></span></a><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I ascend the Badami cave cluster in awe, confronted by the overwhelming rock faces flanking the steep uphill path. <span> </span>Cave number one, almost on the sly, slides in front of my eyes the charming and oblivious dancing <i>Shiva. Shiva</i> with his eighteen arms , creating a halo of rhythm around him, with his waist sveltely <span> </span>tilted into a <i>Tribhangi </i>dancing to his own music ( therefore called <i>Natesha </i>) seems to be gazing into infinity. Though human in scale, his upright chin automatically turns the gazing mortal into a reverent onlooker.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The Badami <span> </span>rock cut monuments are a mix of <i>Shaivite</i> , <i>Vaishnavite</i>, <i>Jain</i> and <i>Buddhist</i> cave shrines. One grapples with the seductive and vibrant imagery of <i>Shiva</i> and his consort <i>Parvati</i> in one cave, while the next is subtle and restrained in its depictions of the ensemble of the <i>Vaishnavite</i> family with all his <i>avatars</i> and their amusing tales. While <i>Varaha</i> cant stop gazing at <i>Bhoodevi,</i> the damsel he has just rescued from distress, a stubborn and stout <i>Trivikrama</i> , acrobatically conquers the three <i>lokas</i> with his exaggeratedly raised leg. <i>Vishnu</i> resting on his serpant bed , with uncut finger nails , looks despondent without his consort <i>Lakshmi</i> around to massage his feet. Meanwhile the shrines in the shadowed depths of these caves, lie empty and bare, haunted with an absence of human touch, now that the shrine image probably, lies in the timeless vacuum of some decrepit museum a hundred miles away. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The sinuous and resplendent life of these caves lies in the myriad accomplice figures around the main images. The <i>gandharvas</i> , the <i>mithunas</i>, the <i>gaNas</i> , the mythical ani-morphs , the <span> </span>glimpses of wall paintings inside the caves , enforce the space with both , a historicity , and a mythical timelessness , that turn these caves into a phantasmagoria. <span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Chalukyan damsels in their most vulnerable and endearing moments, adorn the brackets of the pillared verandah of the caves. Their towering head gear seems to balance out their weightless and fragile waists , yet their slender long legs seem to carry them with a diva like elegance. While these damsels <span> </span>are lost in their solitary self-consumed indulgences, the <i>mithuna</i> couples on the other hand , revel in subtle moments of each other’s companionship. While one tries to help an inebriated lady to her feet, another stands firm and couth, allowing his lady to rest herself completely on his arms. They seem to be the ultimate ideal image of companionship and would perhaps seem incomplete without each other’s vulnerable presence. What is other worldly about them is that despite each other’s proximity, their gazes never meet. They seem to look beyond each other, into spatial and thoughtful tangents, and thereby never seem to materialize the moment into a mortal image by looking directly into each other’s eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This amorous life of the bracket world aloft makes one raise his head in dreamy awe and look up at this mythical magic world like a child being told enticing stories. While the comical dwarves , the <i>gaNas </i>, add frivolity and a sense of festive celebration to the imagery, the alert and wide eyed mythical stags , antelopes and leogryphs on the brackets , brighten the narrative of the caves with an element of <span> </span>magic. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The warm red sandstone glistens under human touch. Rain and the wind seem to seek refuge from themselves amidst the deep shadows of these caves. Little girls in red ribbons manage to reach out and just about touch the navel of the dancing <i>Shiva</i> , as he has no choice but oblige to the soft inquisitive hands. The sweeper lady , rests her broom next to the <i>Dwarpala’s </i>trident , wiping her brow with the crimson border of her <i>Ilkal</i> saree. <span> </span>The idle guide sits resting his back against a pillar in one of the caves’ verandahs, placing his handkerchief on the floor so that his crisp white pant doesn’t get soiled. He takes a moment to look up at the Chalukyan damsel, and his mind rewinds to a hazy image of that shy girl in school, who always used to sit next to the window in the classroom, tying and untying her braided hair. His reverie is broken. A car honks in the distance as a family trickles out for yet another historic rendezvous with Badami. He is up on his feet , ready for his next round. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stories are always waiting to be told. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stones speak. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span class="Apple-style-span">All you have to do is listen. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-33580850973451051982011-07-22T23:53:00.008+05:302011-08-14T00:03:16.410+05:30Ilkal reverie<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1nhoGrLJY_sLWqpM50CxcshyA5RoABbgB7i8p7AWM81OBgI1wNb0IfKEY5JxX1D0Ea-PvNeXP2BCmk_g6qqRPzkxqMrVLdTYsWYw98GV8r8gP8P2bbNX-ER12rsUkZ1OjHJe0UbjJLJEl/s1600/100_6421.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1nhoGrLJY_sLWqpM50CxcshyA5RoABbgB7i8p7AWM81OBgI1wNb0IfKEY5JxX1D0Ea-PvNeXP2BCmk_g6qqRPzkxqMrVLdTYsWYw98GV8r8gP8P2bbNX-ER12rsUkZ1OjHJe0UbjJLJEl/s400/100_6421.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632246250241351122" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><i>When your eyes wake up to grey skies sifting a melancholic whiff in the air, and the air smells of familiar strangers, is that how journeys begin?</i></div><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">A watercolor landscape greets me. The painter must have left his wet brushes on the fields. I’m in the land of black soil, where trees are rare and sharp like unshaven bristles. As my morning begins in company of these bearded fields, I sense the air of a masculine landscape.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">A land which amuses you pleasantly with the sight of men, and not the women, carting pots of water home from the nearest water hole; plastic , fluorescent green yellow orange pots. The infusion of colour by these pots is electric. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ilkal</i> woman tinges the masculinity of the land with her robust frame. Her gait is sturdy, her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">saree pallu</i> drawn confidently over her head and the deep vermillion borders of the drape defining the energetic feminine in the rural landscape. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Not far behind though are the bulls. The bulls with their colourfully decorated horns, seem like an integral life force of the homes. Desi bred and lean in frame , they strut their stuff with pencil points of horns adorned with delicately pointed bronze caps and flashy ribbons flying from their tips, just like the flying scarf of the typical Bollywood heroine of the 60’s ,as she rides her bicycle. Their eyes are wise, deep and intent on talking. Every village I pass by, I learn a new secret from these bulls. A bull from the last town just told me how bad the lady of his house cooks. The bull beside the town’s temple square is eaves dropping on the old men who sit under the peepal tree to discuss their domestic woes. Quite distinctly, the Aihole bulls have an archaic gait, their eyes scanning the tourists in a been-there-done-that<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>manner. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The houses resembling the Maharashtrian vernacular style , complete the idyllic setting of the <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Indian rural landscape . With front pillared porticoes where tired farmers rest on sultry afternoons, the squarish frames of these houses, punctured with miniature windows ( so small that they seem elusive as if not letting through untold secrets)make for an elevational landscape. The barren dark North Karnataka land comes to life through little spurts of intense lively colours , in turbans, baskets , pots and decorated bullocks. Beautiful little exotic birds of assorted shades, light up the electric lines along the road to Aihole. Perched on electric lines, these birds seem to have embraced the lines of industry into the countryside with nonchalance. Makes me wonder how these electric lines have been naturalized into the green by the birds. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The soil changes shades and hues as the road takes new turns and bends. I wonder what is that point on land when the soil decides that it’s time to change its nature? Why do I always never find that line of transition? From black to grey to brown to red to black again, the soil has quite some mood swings in this part of the country. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Shor in the city has turned into melody outside of it. The landscape makes music change colours too. The road turns into a dreamline, where songs move in and out of the reveries one is lost in as one sees his/her own reflections in the window pane, mingle with the world passing by. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The highway has trucks , many form Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Colorful and confused they seem to be in a hurry to run away from this setup. Each truck , a capsule of the what the middle class stands, carrying , pots and pans, fridges and washing machines, microwaves and double beds, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">almirahs</i> with full lengths mirrors and little teacups wrapped in the previous month’s Times of India. Like closed chapters of the middle class , they move away from sight, like missiles sent into oblivion by their families; an attempt at erasure from present, an attempt to write a new future. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The aging stones of Aihole and Pattadkallu glisten in the first rains of a rare monsoon. The wet stone glistens gleefully as Chalukyan damsels bend forth to set right their hairpins in the mirrors of the rain water puddles on the sills of the rock temples. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Badami<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>has caves , monkeys and unassuming majesty. That evening spent at Agasthyateertha is a moment paused and captured in my mind frame. The large pond edged with the mass of caved rocky outcrop is overlooked by <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>a temple named Bhootnath and receding steps edging the other side.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The heavy skies finally spill over. The onset of rain begins with the rich green water of the lake shivering in goosepimples as it is caressed by the drizzle. Rippling seductively in the breeze , the lake flirts amorously with the rain. Looming large , watching over , are solitary sturdy boulders. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The space enshrines vast expanses and sudden silences. It embraces and lets go in one breath. To get to this vastness , however , I have to wind through small lanes of the town where homes huddle close to each other as if to re-assure each other of their presence ; each home with a door , each door like a frame, framing the lady of the house in her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ilkal saree</i> pulled over her head and gazing out at the outside world from within her secure shelter. There is a direct connect between the lane and the home . Badami has the warmth of a heartfelt conversation. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Sheltered under the aging stones of the Bhootnath temple, it is an eternal moment watching the rain fall on the water around me . My thoughts are adrift , caught in the winds, sheltered under rocky shadows , gazing at the water dripping from the wet rocky ledges into the pool that has formed on the stone sill. In the distance, monkeys chatter. Little umbrellas are no match for this symphonic romance between sky and earth.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">And out of this magical evening, emerges a small cotton wisp, floating down along the edge of the high overlooking cliff. The sky has decided to take the leap, to plunge forth , only to be lifted up by an <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>unbearable lightness of the free fall. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is the birth of the waterfall. Slow and steady it trickles down, soon, growing into a robust fall. The ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">MeN basadi’</i> ( wax town) is finally melting in the monsoon mélange.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">As it rains , the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">mithuna</i> couples up in the caves are lost in each others’ eyes . Huddled in the assurance of the stone around them , they shiver as the rain water seeps up into their embrace, infusing a renewed romance into their eternal moment. </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Aihole, Pattadakallu, Badami , Bijapura </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;text-indent: 0.5in; "><span class="Apple-style-span">june 27th , 2011.</span></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-64856956250584695112011-05-31T11:22:00.004+05:302011-05-31T11:31:41.064+05:30Between friends and enemy , the stranger...<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZI9niz1KUUIaK0ETqlEz4dx-G7iiX6AdOoxQvI5sqCcj7TWWRjiQhppwkoDyJAsMLbaCNy6ipbnRNtQXkpj3TnGH1uFQwH5cyGzGiNlNDyY-RBvN2ieYPahyphenhyphenXhyphenhyphen_Mr62hJvUJ7H9dT-js/s1600/100_5893.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 162px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZI9niz1KUUIaK0ETqlEz4dx-G7iiX6AdOoxQvI5sqCcj7TWWRjiQhppwkoDyJAsMLbaCNy6ipbnRNtQXkpj3TnGH1uFQwH5cyGzGiNlNDyY-RBvN2ieYPahyphenhyphenXhyphenhyphen_Mr62hJvUJ7H9dT-js/s200/100_5893.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612756134118114018" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLq_bAffYN3Johd44UjxrrJJzQXYYPFCQHToc6z-JicEbS7cUjtsLTDAupp9KATz5XPNIESqDqgo2sPvDm7_KzOIWxDDTU9SVl_9-lwRbj7nU8gAKzyVUnDVfbqEs_Ffp5LvceqTcnh-K2/s1600/100_5893.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Wriggly toes,</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">My feet in warm sand</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I find a stranger’s trail</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Footsteps, keen and deep,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Etched with moist tears of the sea ,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Glass bottles and mossy bread crumbs.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I walk by this new absence.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The feet seem large,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">But the strides match.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Not for long.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Between friends and enemy</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The stranger.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The waves have claimed</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">A momentary companion.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">They’ve spared me.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Maybe next time,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I will follow. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-10525712613038661312011-05-07T02:48:00.009+05:302011-05-10T21:49:46.541+05:30One bus ride away...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQNsqhK4-6xNRz_w3UYkjyXq-uQaNP6v7N2Q3uvuwuVUyU4_ydV6iNe1l-R-RZVl0k_KJKHqt6E0hbJgcQFt0LIuJ9RmSNLG4_i2_BDtoNgIAp_TYhSi1g6BFWl7i5UD7fOPLOO-sHZJ1/s1600/100_5224.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQNsqhK4-6xNRz_w3UYkjyXq-uQaNP6v7N2Q3uvuwuVUyU4_ydV6iNe1l-R-RZVl0k_KJKHqt6E0hbJgcQFt0LIuJ9RmSNLG4_i2_BDtoNgIAp_TYhSi1g6BFWl7i5UD7fOPLOO-sHZJ1/s320/100_5224.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605122780738003890" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span> </span>A</span><span class="Apple-style-span">mongst eclectic travelers , I have a ticket to ride to the land of the Lama , to get my first glimpse of snow peaks. Behind me two foreigners introduce themselves as writers , amidst talks of meditation, vipasana, teaching village children and discovering India. In front of me, a boy and a girl are lost in each other’s eyes, as a red Ferrari cap keeps juggling off his head to hers. On my side, a group of four students probably doing their Phd’s from JNU , are discussing some ecological policy issues, while somewhere at the back, an old retired army man with his wife are on visiting rounds.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3HiOBmnZIkd_eBTXPn4ov0lHoVmekvxTBLSROreMk3NmeJU07GdxiHGOpJRm-fi3CoJcvRDnNKVLf-MDvIRlyv_eUsZ-um2HaMu_WLxvEO3YN5LPuNAtFO4zMM-Q4Rzei6ddEimYROl5/s1600/100_5139.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></a> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span> </span>At day break, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">pahadi</i> landscape is dotted with red turrets of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">devi mandirs</i>, sparrows and monkeys, softened white pebble beds and streams, as the bus winds up hills to Dharamshala. The bus to Naddi, is all orange inside. The driver has light eyes and sharp Afghan features, and waits long enough to fill the little bus to the brim before taking off. Among towering boys and homely women, a little schoolgirl climbs in. It is tragic that she has to go to school in a bus filled with holidaying tourists. She has navy blue ribbons in her double braided hair and a look of breathless anxiety on her face. She is tossed and shuffled around near the engine seat of the driver, by huge women in matching knitted sweaters and thick spectacles. She coyly gives in, making place for all the big people around her. She steadily and passively scans every being on the bus, till she has to get off at her stop. I realize that the big women around her, are her teachers, who also get off and make their way to the local school where the bell is just about to ring. As I see winding uphill pathways, I am reminded of Kiarostami’s landscape in ‘Where is my friend’s home?’. Now and then the hills peep out and register their greetings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>Three streets and a junction make up Mcleodganj, the buzz town near Dharamshala. The place does not claim any paths to enlightenment. It seems to have very plainly and readily accepted its role as a hustle zone for spiritual wanderers, searchers and tourists. Its economy is from the traveler. The cafes, food joints, cake shops, and souvenir stalls lining the streets, with wrinkled Tibetan faces, wanderlust hipsters, and maroon clad monks and nuns, turn Little Lhasa into a colorful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">feluda</i> of textures. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>Dalai Lama seems to like yellow windows. The Tantric Buddhas around me effuse with colourful energy, emotion and colour. They are at the same time grotesque and enticing. Twenty one Green Taras stare at you like seductresses beyond your power. The intricate lines from the wall paintings have a life of their own, as a bunch of high school children on excursion, fill the space with their giggles and happy chatter. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>The shingles on the roofs of the houses, here, shine and glimmer in the sun, just like the snow peaks in the light of dusk. The flat slabs lie on top of each other ever so re-assuringly and with a confidence that they won’t slide down. They are now a cheerful<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>grey, now a greenish blue, now a dull hue ,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>just like the moods of a day. The Bhagsunag waterfall is a little more than a trickle. The rocks are spotted with maroon, as monks have a little time out in the name of a water ritual. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>That evening there is a candle light march, as the monks set out in circles around the main square, in protest of the arrest of fellow Tibetan monks. It is a moment of mixed feelings. One can’t help but feel a certain sense of helplessness and uncertainty, a sad sense of calm in their faces. Suddenly their place in the big scheme of things makes this scene seem a vain moment. They seem too tiny, too fragile, too transient before the mountains looming large all around them. The timelessness of the landscape seems to mute and evaporate the tangible voices of the valley. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>Meanwhile, the US president Barrack Obama claims the death of the most powerful threat to the world, Osama, and thereby, turns the world into a spectator of yet another ridiculous unrealistically real event. The glimpses I catch of the ‘world’, now and then, on television screens, in cafes and antique handicraft shops, put my mind in a haze of confusion. So many different worlds existing side by side, parallel, tangentially, intersecting only at moments like these, yet never really part of each other, the conundrum that so many clashing realms could produce, makes me want to retreat into my shell, close my doors certain worlds, and open certain select windows. But one cannot sit in a one windowed closet for long. The breeze has to cross through, and doors have all to be opened before long. Otherwise, the sound of the silence inside can turn more lethal than noise itself. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>There is a certain morose joy in the way the people wrap up their shops at sundown. The hustle of the day slowly dies to a deafening silence of abandonment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Few cafes are still abuzz with picture perfect characters , who seem to have been sitting in the same chair reading the same page of the same book since morning, having become subjects of many trigger happy tourist with cameras. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>I am an outsider to this place, and I make no attempts at appropriation. I cannot turn the monks into subjects of characterization. They seem to represent a unified whole, embodying a unanimous sentiment and voice. I promise many of the shopkeepers, that I would return the tomorrow, but, then I will never really find my way back to them tomorrow. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>Under my new found mango umbrella, I find a new found embrace, a warm hug on a chilly day. By the third day the auto drivers, the bus drivers, the café owners have turned into known faces and names. Waiting at the bus stop for the Naddi bus, I see an old Tibetan woman with her grandson. The boy has a green toy truck in his hands and the grandmother seems lost in him, carrying him around her shoulders and waving at the grandfather who is waiting at the bus stop.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I decide to get myself a Tibetan dress stitched, the next time I come here. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>Naddi is like the little village from Majidi’s<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>‘The Color of Paradise’ . The hills look lofty from here. They <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>beckon ever more strongly. Sipping on hot chai, I serenade the peaks, scale the slopes with my eyes and in two hours, mentally scour the whole range. Sitting on the road side curb, watching people turn into vanishing dots, <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>an sense of power assumes you, the high point providing me a panoptical position. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>On a lazy afternoon , lying under tall cedars and pine trees, I drift into a reveries and float with an ‘unbearable lightness of being’. The afternoon is unreal. Time seems to have gone amiss. Yellow petals ring with unsung notes of silent hills. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>The lightness will soon need an anchor. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span>Sooner or later, there will <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>always be a bus waiting to take you away. </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Dharamshala/Mcleodganj/Satobari . May5th 2011.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3HiOBmnZIkd_eBTXPn4ov0lHoVmekvxTBLSROreMk3NmeJU07GdxiHGOpJRm-fi3CoJcvRDnNKVLf-MDvIRlyv_eUsZ-um2HaMu_WLxvEO3YN5LPuNAtFO4zMM-Q4Rzei6ddEimYROl5/s1600/100_5139.JPG" style="font-size: 16px; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3HiOBmnZIkd_eBTXPn4ov0lHoVmekvxTBLSROreMk3NmeJU07GdxiHGOpJRm-fi3CoJcvRDnNKVLf-MDvIRlyv_eUsZ-um2HaMu_WLxvEO3YN5LPuNAtFO4zMM-Q4Rzei6ddEimYROl5/s1600/100_5139.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></a></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-5334783877519416022011-04-29T04:19:00.004+05:302011-04-29T04:29:45.764+05:30Tangerine<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYgGY40oauk29jZHqoxrWQ531wYjq6QB9x3zUrbUOteSxJ10EH7_nsGPUoG0oNpW-px_k86wQAL_OJwxUa7BUVJSvbAjZYltCGkrzZoqZDsOVyHET5puZgT_yrSoZeNZ07BKllasArSjc/s1600/tangerine.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYgGY40oauk29jZHqoxrWQ531wYjq6QB9x3zUrbUOteSxJ10EH7_nsGPUoG0oNpW-px_k86wQAL_OJwxUa7BUVJSvbAjZYltCGkrzZoqZDsOVyHET5puZgT_yrSoZeNZ07BKllasArSjc/s320/tangerine.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5600771516722095586" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind)</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Tangerine,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Can you hear the tambourine,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">As you flame up the night,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">When sea waves crash across </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Memories in sand?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; "><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">This is it, it's going to be gone soon.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; "><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">I know.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; "><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">What do we do?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; "><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Enjoy it.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; "><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Like green meadows</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">You run into wilderness,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Your red burns the forest,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Singeing dry leaves,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">And crumpled letters,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Beneath our feet.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Last night you were</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">The blue moon, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">The ocean swelled in your eyes,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">And teased the sand </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Sticking to your brow,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Don’t stir, lest you wake,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">The waves are at your behest.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">When you stood on that far edge</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Of the breaking line </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Between dusk and dawn</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">What colour were your hands,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">As you bent into the ocean</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Caressed the waves,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">And turned the sea into purple desire..</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Through your hair</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Let me run my fingers</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">On my hands,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Let me get some colour,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">I will meet you once upon a dream,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Memories seem too old today,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">You are not a concept,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Tangerine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-81040282863597497272011-04-22T22:36:00.004+05:302011-04-22T22:51:28.391+05:30<span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6DdSfHfpz4FLXor3JJH6Za_K5TlK3v4IC1wF6SM2qV4DVxfoM3ReRS1-uBpEmGGLekgWSrrkCmW5S9EwhLuTieTwG9O7ciYL6Gu9wP-ibsu2IK8DYpbaCll-fUvAl7SjfkA4uWnN4Mwm/s1600/chola_bronze_media.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY6DdSfHfpz4FLXor3JJH6Za_K5TlK3v4IC1wF6SM2qV4DVxfoM3ReRS1-uBpEmGGLekgWSrrkCmW5S9EwhLuTieTwG9O7ciYL6Gu9wP-ibsu2IK8DYpbaCll-fUvAl7SjfkA4uWnN4Mwm/s320/chola_bronze_media.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598458748648030850" /></a><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div>Ecstatic moss.</div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Nostalgic moss. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Misty memoirs </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">out of thin air </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">and in moist eyes,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Green grows </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Dew drops off fingertips</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">a copper gaze melts</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">a lilting hip twists</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">gentle and firm,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">the ages go by </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">second by second</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">patina pines</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">for that final touch</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">that will breathe</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">her to life.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">in these moist moments,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">green glows.</span></div></div><div><br /></div>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-45642083721203188942011-04-17T14:27:00.009+05:302011-04-17T14:43:57.257+05:30crumbling kites<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfw-_VAJGUe20vDlNjZMefuQvoTXqC1xnIdn7EGzLiVjk9Gj_xp9ke_PyHJOPNMtjfUpmKjPpJSq8n1VvxQCU0DkMTJKun-ppg2T0kN25yhNbPzmTjByKzgoox9f84lSZuJu93ZgOh-S_/s1600/pink+kites.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfw-_VAJGUe20vDlNjZMefuQvoTXqC1xnIdn7EGzLiVjk9Gj_xp9ke_PyHJOPNMtjfUpmKjPpJSq8n1VvxQCU0DkMTJKun-ppg2T0kN25yhNbPzmTjByKzgoox9f84lSZuJu93ZgOh-S_/s320/pink+kites.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596477073301488802" /></a></span><div style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-indent: 0px; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> </span> There was a pink moon,</span></div><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">that other night , which stole her seconds away.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Tick tick went the watch on her wrist.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">But time wouldn’t budge. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Where had it gone? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The staleness of stagnation, she could sniff. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The hopeless drifter was </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">caught in the doldrums.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">No wind to drift away into. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The sun came once that night,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">to knock the pink dew off the moon’s cheeks. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">And down it fell.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Like crumbling paper after </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">a hundred and seven kites got stuck </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">on the lone tamarind tree on that crater. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">As the sun blew , </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">crepe paper floated , flew, and settled down,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">like a myriad magic carpets, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">on the roadside curb,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">on the edges of vulnerable minds, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">and on a footpath that now crunched </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">with the sound of the crumpled pink,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">torn hearts and worn out soles. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">She walks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">She always does.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Along this vulnerable edge, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">balancing on the yellow and black curb stones,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">hands unconsciously reaching out, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">fingers stretching out </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">like antennae trying desperately </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">to catch a signal,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">hovering in the air, so clear and elusive.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">A lost footing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">A crunch onto the crisp carpet, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">her toes are now tickled by torn edges, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">teased by the grass blades . </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Hagard old brown petals , </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">shorn of their rouge and youth, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">cut into her skin,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">like old empty vestiges of Broadway divas, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">now orphaned and hurting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The soles come off , </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">bare foot, she trots, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">crunching and stepping over </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">every oncoming hope of salvage. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The pink will destroy her. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Consume her. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Expurgate her.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">her fingers now bleed pink.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">As she touches the dew drop on her eyelid, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">the sky splashes into rose and ice candy </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The sun sets in her eyes, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">a Monet storm raging through them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">And she hums, strumming a long lost tune ,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Across the two hundred miles of kite strings </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">that lie in between her and a few lonely <span> </span>kites ,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">crumbling by the day, fading in pink, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Left behind , </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">because they wouldn’t let go of the tamarind tree, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span">So easily .</span></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5121522765167184405.post-68175902565823895622011-04-11T23:05:00.001+05:302011-04-11T23:07:14.054+05:30<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Sitting on the sideline</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Yellow stripes on mind,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Tarmac and gravel</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Crunch under my hand,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>There is no time that can measure me now,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Into the wild, </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>I go. </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Each step I take</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>I get higher on land,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Each bow I break,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Sinks me deeper in sand,</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Tangled in branches </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>In rapids I row</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Humming birds and red shoes</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>See me go by</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>Into the wild </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>I go.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i> </i></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i> </i></span></o:p></p>Srajana Kaikinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13877700916922822985noreply@blogger.com0