Art Attack

So, I came across this article in the papers (when I was on the can (...TMI?)) and was flabbergasted. Really? The art world is fraught with such rivalries? It's almost like a parody! The world is one crazy place...

Not now.

I think the reason that I haven't written these last few months can be pinned down to something quite common- my past catching up with me. I topped my class in the first year B.Ed exams, both siblings visited, the most adorable puppy has taken over my home, I get to decorate a whole new house in our village, a new year has dawned with new possibilities and plans, and yet, in spite of all these beautiful things, all these nice moments 'in the now', I still look inside and see a darkness.

Every few nights, I dream of my father returning home. Sometimes he's middle aged, sometimes older. But always alive. And the more he shows up in my dreams, the more my waking moments are haunted by his presence, and his absence. How does one get over death? I don't know. People say that you don't really. You just learn to hide it better. I understand that.

What I have also come to understand is just how very fragile we all are. How much we all experience in life, how these experiences make us harder and softer at the same time. We learn to hide it or power through it, ignore it or bury it, break down, re-form or stay broken... sometimes we don't even know. I don't.

I don't know where I am. And that's why I haven't written. When you're lost, how do you find your words?

Bloody Shwetaketu!

So it was this bloody fellow Shwetaketu who set Indian women down this path of oppression. This is cited in the Mahabharatha and for once, I'm going to just believe it literally, so that I may use this guy's name for target practice. 

Shwetaketu, unnai yaaru paaaaaaa ketu?!!!!

                                       

Terrace Garden!

Positively Revolting

There are days in which I become a specialist in gloom and doom. On those days, I do not welcome rays of sunshine. I frown and glare at them. I cloak myself in dark clouds, think black thoughts and refuse to see the bright side. I know, know, that crap is crap. In its own way, its a deep place. So when someone comes along, bares a multitude of teeth in what I vaguely recognize as a grin and tells me to cheer up because all's right with the world, I want to send them to deeper places, like the bottom of a very, very deep well. I mean, what's with the delirious happiness? It's like this clip from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Had I been in Pheobe's shoes, ugly things would have happened.

With increased enlightenment, generally speaking, people are becoming quite 'positive'. We Indians thrive on drama, but it's becoming an endangered species. Can't even fight in peace anymore. I mean, why can't people just hold lifelong grudges and leave it at that? But nooooo! Everybody wants to work things out. Screw psychology, I say. Always advocating doing the right thing. It doesn't know the satisfaction that comes with being right and pointedly ignoring the wrong party. It can make you feel like a boss. Like a boss! You must admit the truth in that- aren't there a few people you're glad you don't have to speak to for the rest of your life? The kind who, if they were hanging off the edge of a cliff that you were walking past, you'd have to first win an internal debate with yourself before you reach out a helping hand? Make 'em sweat a bit. Heh, heh. (Please don't unfriend me at this point.)

This whole thing of looking at the bright side is difficult for someone who comes from a family majoring in morbid. My upbringing prepared me better for hell than heaven, with family members hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce on you if you did something wrong.

Unfortunately, my family has way too many unspoken right and wrong things. For some reason, sleeping during the day is just a step short of criminal. If caught, we weren't sleeping (indignant voice), we were simply 'resting our eyes'. Once my mom started snoring, that excuse couldn't fly, so she'd compensate by waking up and sneaking up on me wherever I am, standing right behind me and saying "What are you doing?", thereby making me jump out of my skin and skip several vital heartbeats. Turning around doesn't help at all, let me tell you. Seeing red-rimmed eyes in a puffy face surround by disheveled hair is hardly soothing- the heart still pumps too fast. When I'd still be tapping my chest and glaring at her, she'd say sorrowfully, "I fell asleep." Yeah, mom, I heard the chain-saw. Can you please go feel guilty elsewhere, preferably somewhere with a mirror and comb?

All in all, positivity was a luxury in our household until we grew up and turned things around a bit. My parents were suspicious of it at first, eyeing it as they would a new creature. They were always suspicious of books as the source of these newfangled ideas. "Did you read it in a book?" said with narrowed eyes was usually how arguments ended between us. But thankfully, time and maturity caught up with our family and we are now a more relaxed bunch. Still gloomy, but a more laidback gloomy.  Case in point: it is now time for my late morning nap. 

Plop the Slop

I've decided to blog about food again. I don't know why, seeing that I'm on a diet. But that's apparently how it works! So, Plop the Slop. That's what I've renamed it from it's former demure avatar 'When Mia Cooks'. Mia was for Miakoda, my adopted name stemming from the love of ancient cultures -  American Indian, in this case. But Miakoda's grown up and whimsy has given way to sardonic humor. So as appetizing as it sounds, Plop the Slop is food home for now.

I think I'll open a restaurant with that name some day. Bet it'll be a hit!

Plop the Slop

Cheeky ;)

The human body is a baffling piece of machinery, at once frightening in its fragility and awesome in its audacious design. We have hard bones, the softest tissues. Lots of flowy stuff, gooey stuff and gummy stuff. Let's not forget all the chemicals. All of this packed within skin. Much like a sausage. And then we have brains, and we have bums. And though we all have brains, shocking variations in its usage leads me to this conclusion- only bums are universal. They are what I call 'the great equalizer'.

As a teenager, I read a great piece somewhere that goes like this- 'Don't be intimidated by anyone. Remember- everyone has a bum'. I took this great nugget of wisdom to heart. I wanted to make it my philosophy. I told myself that it didn't matter what a person is or has done-  if he's climbed Mount  Everest, been to the moon and back, or is the President of a country. He or she is just another sapien with a bum.

It's something I find it easy to apply in certain situations- in interviews for example. If there's a suited, bespectacled pompous know-it-all who's putting forth questions as if he has a direct line to Universal knowledge, and obviously trying to be intimidating, then in my mind, I wave a hand nonchalantly and think 'Pah! You have a bum.' And that's enough.

But it backfires in other instances when you don't want to be thinking of posteriors at all. Like when striking a conversation with an attractive guy. Then the bum is less an equalizer and more of a make-you-stutter-er.

The reason I'm going on and on about bums is because I believe that we are much too dignified as a species. After all, we have bums. So who are we kidding, really? Why do we sit in restaurants with our legs perfectly placed, hands stylishly holding forks and spoons, carefully dabbing our faces with napkins? Why do we walk with just the right amount of poise, arms swinging, but not too much, expressions neutral and controlled, our steps careful?

Now, I don't advocate stuffing our faces with food or whacking people as we walk past each other, but it bothers me that we are not energetically free. And I don't just mean physically. A book and a TV show that I experienced this week showed me how much we hold back emotionally in the name of dignity. I mean, the very first thing I work hard at when I like a guy, is to make sure that he doesn't know how much I like him. I'm 'dignified'. I'm also an idiot. And I know I'm not alone.

So what we should all contemplate more about is this- we all have bums. If we could just keep that fact in our awareness, we would be far less poised and far more animated. There'd be more honesty and less conflict. More love, less hate. More living, less existing. So that's basically the key to life, the great equalizer, the one guide to a better, less bummed out world- bums.