so long there is now
when here you were there away
now rain drops itself

Writing | 1 Comment »

Eating oatmeal with blueberries and maple sugar at midnight so I can go to sleep with a warm and full stomach.

Mentally cataloging the contours and innards of “law school life” with an intent to understand why people, including myself, act so strange with each other, with others, while in this high pressure environment.

Organizing radical conferences with some wonderful, passionate people.

Playing capoeira and making new friends in the process. And new injuries. Ouch.

Listening recklessly to MIA, David Byrne, Bjork, Talib Kweli, and various oldie-but-goodie Bollywood and UK hits.

Waking up just in time to make it out of my door just in time to make it to class not in time at all.

Experimenting with sweaters and jackets because its cold!

Spending a weekend each with my extended family and my lovely parents, most respectively.

Receiving surprise, perfect gifts.

Remembering to get some vinegar to put in the pickle my mom made for me.

Reading one of my narrative pieces at a student art exhibit.

Attending class less, enjoying life more.

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They come through TV, books, radio, internet, iPods, certain manifesting circumstances, and other various sundries. I wonder what there is about this place that makes it so different than that place. And I wonder why the lives we traverse are not so immediately forgiven that when someone picks up and goes, they are gone not forever. They are merely responding to the gravity pull of the metropole.

I wonder how we deal with these ripping situations. Where people are ripped out of their lives and into others lives in such a way that it creates a sense of isolation so extreme and perhaps evokes an individualism that cannot be paralleled and likely will never be because as long as metropoles exist, there will be migrants. The kinds of draws we hold, the kinds of concerns we have play under the shadow of these big gravities.

I think there is much more to this than we think and I think there is a lot more to things than that which we would hope it to be. I think living life in the metropole is part of an economic, cultural, social, mental, psychological, and a somewhat sticky and mildly disgusting assimilation. The way it makes us want to leave, physically, from our families, from where we’re from, to something entirely different. The ways our economies bring migrants to LA, Houston, NYC, Chicago, to the cities in between.

The Global North is stockpiling itself with those from the Global South.

But is it in case something happens? Or has it already happened? The wars of political economy that wage miles, years, moments south of where I sit and write so often spell out the thoughts of migrants, that where they were is no longer where they want to be. I make presumptions and assumptions, no doubt, but I feel there’s something here.

The metropole brought someone to the immigrant detention center. He was explaining to me how he came over, what he did to come over to this city of angels. How he paid a coyote twice to come over, how he had worked as a mechanic and then started his own business at his home. He didn’t do anything wrong, got married, had two children, and was then picked up by immigration officials. His glasses were broken, and he had a barber pole colored string that let him keep his glasses functional. I didn’t ask him why he came over, but I guessed, why would anyone wade over miles of mountains and rivers, duck from headlights, keep eyes peeled and ears perked for hours and hours?

So what do people do? How do we deal with the ripping? We just do, as in so many situations. Negotiations happen constantly at braincell, telephone, email, and holding hand speeds. I was struck with the immensity and intensity of the story I heard. He is being held because he wasn’t proper in the eyes of the metropole, he is somehow an odd piece that the metropole’s racist and xenophobic apparatus feels compelled to keep for inspection and then push out, with strings of family still tied to him as he is jettisoned just south. I was in awe of his story and his experiences, he’d been through much more than my life ever probably will – and yet, I’ve been perused, processed, and deemed just fine in the cracked lens of the metropole. I can stay here; he cannot.

The gravity of it all both silences, and angers.

Economics, Immigration, Politic, Race | No Comments »

I really like this video and song by the Avalanches, an Australian band. Their album of the same name, Since I Left You, is one of those albums that I listen to for weeks on end, forget about and fall in love with again. They have one of the most unique sounds I’ve heard in a long time. And the video has some great dance moves – always a plus. Here’s the YouTube link to the video.

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I come back from a night out and decide to make some tea and catch up on the news. In the late hour I’m prone to click non-newsy links and so I do and am confronted with the following:

“Pillow Fight in San Francisco!”

Um, OK. I look at the pictures and it was exactly as I feared – hundreds of people bringing pillows out to a public place in SF to do something usually reserved for the privacy of bedrooms across the world. On first brush, I’m mildly disgusted – not only is it a big waste of pillow-related resources but its seems to bespeak of a massive deprivation of intimacy that moves people to spend their evening hitting other people with fluff.

Not to say that its not fun. I’ve participated in many a pillow fight and they are, indeed, quite fun and satisfying.

On second brush, I see that most of the folks in the picture are white. That what reigns in this situation might be an expression of white privilege – the flippant way of creating a hugely public event out of something private signifies the peculiarity of white privilege. It reminds me of cuddle parties, where people pay to cuddle with each other in private spaces, but its become such a phenomena, that it speaks of putting things public.

And to boot, this event happens on Valentine’s Day. Is it a singles event? I wonder whether one could find their soulmate after smacking their face with white goose down. Does love strike on first fluff smack?

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I realize that most of the time when I write on my blog, its about experiences I’ve had and the few peculiarities that make those experiences worth writing about. I read something, usually in English, and comment on it. Something happens to me, or I do something, and I record the result in my head until it feels worthy enough to spill out into this strange medium.

I write in English. I read in English. I mostly think in English. I have dreams in English. But when I listen to something in Hindi (my first language), when I read or write something in Hindi, or when a thought only makes sense in Hindi, I feel a little something different. Like when I speak to my parents or friends in Hindi, theres a piece of beautiful I’m tapping into.

As if my indigenous tongue’s platonic qualities are tied to deep meaning, connection, livelihood, memory. Hindi’s an old language, no doubt, but I’m not talking about rendering it exotic. I’m talking about what it means to me, that the language is tied to family, of times growing up and on the phone – a world with which I am intimately familiar. And which is made apparent to me almost every time I open my mouth and sound out an English with a slight southern twang.

One time, when I was in India and I was about 15, I was riding on the waves of a perky mind that picked up Hindi in a snap. I was speaking in Hindi, cracking jokes in Hindi, thinking in Hindi. Upon coming back to the states, I started reminiscing of times traveling long distances in dusty Marutis with drivers with working-class roots and cousins who loved to sing. And when I did, the conversations I remembered fondly were transformed into English; those long conversations had mutated upon stepping off the jet. It was the strangest thing, and it was the first time I realized how easy I could switch between languages, how this balancing, juggling act would remain with me the rest of my life.

I sometimes regret not studying more of Hindi. Nowadays, I listen to as much Hindi/Urdu as I can, I try to read Hindi when I remember. But to be honest, I don’t speak it as much as I’d like, and the more I continue this way, the more it’ll keep reminding me of a distant, uncurrent past.

Language, Politic | No Comments »

I was just studying. Reading contract law and trying to make sense of how courts calculate damages, how they commodify so an equitable judgment can be reached. No, nix the equitable part.

And then I went to my good friend JP’s site to see what poetry he’s put up of late. He participated in the 3:15 experiment – wake up for a month at 3:15 am, write poetry, and then go back to sleep. I’m usually a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous at that time, which would probably make things easier to write (the theory being that when I’m not a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous, then I have some equally arbitrary divisions between my creativity and my pen). But since I love my sleep, I would probably not participate in such an experiment.

Anyway, I was reading some of his great poetry. And then I went back to my contracts. And that started to read like poetry. It was the weirdest paradigm shift-lag. I suddenly realize that I’m not supposed to do that. That somehow it was wrong; I wasn’t meeting my internal normalized expectations. When I realized I’m not supposed to take contracts in the way I take poetry in, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought briefly – Why am I doing this?

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I’m an honest believer that what we write both reflects and patterns the ways we perceive, what we believe, how we are in the world. And its not only about what we write, but what we produce, what we choose to put out. But recent experiences have brought these beliefs to a head, forcing me to think about what I write and the effect my decisions to stick thoughts onto paper have on my reality.

My parents’ garage burned down at the end of last year in Texas. Luckily, no one was harmed, but my wonderful cat Neelu passed away in the flames. Our other cat, Shanti, escaped somehow and was only found two days later, her formerly white fur now a dull smoky shade, her little body bruised and suffering occasional nighttime coughing fits. Nothing else survived; all was burnt. The smoke had creeped into the house and anything exposed to it was taken by the insurance company for cleaning. My parents can’t work out at the gym because their shoes are being dry-cleaned. The stuff in the fridge was rotting. Electricity and water, cut off. My sister didn’t want to look at Neelu’s body, which was luckily taken care of by one of the Latino firemen who was wearing a tulsi mala and had pictures of Krishna at home, on his Altar.

Fires in my neighborhood is a subject of a short story that I had worked on (and a piece of it posted here) a few months back. In it, I was driving up to my neighborhood late at night and became quickly concerned for my family when I saw the flames emanating from our slice of suburbia, the Orchard Lakes subdivision. These worries came back to me when I got the phone call about Neelu and the garage. I couldn’t believe it, and after being immensely thankful that my parents were okay, my thoughts eventually turned to my long-standing fascination with natural yet odd things, and how this is the second time that what I write is connected to what happens to me, and my family.

The first was when I was writing another short story about a suburban Muslim family not unlike my own. When thinking about a certain character, my friend Birj came immediately to mind. His irreverence and illogical nature, dedication to social justice, our kinship over bad jokes and puns were a “natural fit” for the character I was contemplating. Once I figured out how to incorporate him, I decided to make the character disappear. Two days later, I find out that Birj had passed. Since then, I haven’t been able to finish that story.

I gradually became afraid that what I write shadows a later reality. I remember my exact thoughts when I decided to make that character disappear – I thought it novel and an interesting plot twist. But more, it just felt natural and furthered the story along in a direction I hadn’t yet thought through but knew was right. That I was fascinated with the giant fire is not abnormal – but when I chose to write about that over other odd things, it foreshadowed what happened a few weeks ago – and another disappearance.

A friend recently said that it could be that I can see the future, that I have the ability to make premonitions. But before that, that same friend told me I should stop writing. My sister said the same. So because of that, I’ve had a tough time writing.

So this is more complex than mere writer’s block. I’m afraid of what I might write in the future because it might turn into something I never expected. Its hard to know where to go from here.

Writing | 3 Comments »

I’m on vacation now in Houston, and as is proper, there are daily, weekly, and annual rituals to observe and in which to participate.

Like going to the movies with my sister, not staying overnight at friends’ places so I can wake up and eat breakfast with the family, running late to any appointments involving my sister, brother in law, and myself in some combination, playing badminton with my mom, spending hours in front of the television which spits out a combination of Hindi and English in unlike amounts.

And infalliably, participating in various Hindu-related prayers and rituals. New Years Day provides the perfect occasion for reminding ourselves that we are Hindu, or maybe a time to re-evaluate my own Hindu-ness. We start the day late – all the sons and daughters are slow in waking. But the parents are punctually shuffling through papers for any department or grocery store sales, for coupons. This ritual seems to prepare them for later prayers.

I wake to discussions of the sale of an air-conditioning unit at Best Buy. I know whats in store and prepare my mind and body for a day of feet falling asleep from hours of sitting and palms together fingertips towards the sky. I’m ready to do pooja.

First stop, our temple at home. We sit, waiting for my sister and brother-in-law, and we start when they take too long. Books and pamphlets with lamp oil stains and tears and gods and goddesses are held again and their contents recited. Cushions are sat on, flames are lit, incense optional. Framed pictures of different avatars of gods and goddesses are gazed at. I sit in back, my parents rock back and forth as they pray, I fiddle with my cushion and my seating position.

Next stop, Meenakshi temple in Pearland, TX. A miniature of the beautiful Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai, India. We visit deity upon deity, taking turns walking around the deity. There are throngs of people around so we wait in lines to pray, to give alms, to get blessed by the priest. It is dark by now, but there are plenty of lights and lamps. Inside the main temple complex, we wait in more lines, but we are strategic and travel together, ensuring that our turns come together. And we take prasad and sit down for a moment before leaving.

My brother-in-law was ahead of us in all of this; he was always one deity ahead. When I was at Ganesh, he was at Meenakshi. Of course, I tried to keep up, but couldn’t. He even laid prostrated in front of some deities. But he drove all of us in and out of the temple; he epitomized speed pooja-ing. I was familiar with this technique, having done it myself on many occasions. The image that most pops into my head from that day now is my brother-in-law’s laced fingers accompanying his shoeless feet moving across brick and stone, eyeing the next deity to worship and preparing to convert his fingers to point to the sky, from laced to parallel.

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Here are the lyrics to Lali Puna’s Crawling by Numbers, a song I just listened to:

You’ll be charged a hundred dollars
if you can’t pay back the debts
Work your soul and work your lifetime
without money you can’t buy
Can’t you see
six feet underground?
Identify the system
Identify the system
Watch your neighbours
and their big dreams
Silent envy on your face
A life deluxe, it would be easy
What would you give to join the club
Can’t you see
six feet underground?
Identify the system
Identify the system.

I think identifying the system is merely the first step.

Economics, Music, Politic, Resistance | No Comments »