The Rebelle blog

So much to write! After a very very long hiatus, I am writing here with an enthusiasm that I have forever felt for writing blogs. It's been over a week that I am unwell, down with cold and a bad coughing fit that seems to swell itself in my heart and then just drown me into an endless pool of misery. Even made me thought how I have aged in a week since being unwell. The reason why I took to writing today is quite simply this- the way we slog ourselves to death on the pretext of working, earning a living, precariously swivelling on a pendulum that compromises our health so that we earn monies, our bank accounts remain fat when we lose our health, mind and deteriorate mental peace. I, also, unfortunately fell prey to this vicious cycle and ended up losing control over my health, both mind and body.  Today, as I write this, while in my workplace where I am surrounded by colleagues who are laughing loudly, discussing a myriad affairs, I feel strangely comfortable in all of this. ...

I was going through an emotional turmoil last night and used this blog to vent out my grief. Sometimes, well, only a few times, I wonder if my understanding of grief, misery and sorrow is the same that everyone goes through or I am severly meddling these confused emotions I can't seem to word out. Whichever way it is, I felt incredibly better after writing everything here, and I am trying to assert my mind into believing that THAT which hasn't happened yet and perhaps won't take place shan't worry me and cause me distress or unncesarry panic. I suppose I already should be alert at the use of such negative energy bubbles into my conversation here. I am throwing caution to the wind and deciding not to think about anything at all. My heart goes into a ballistic mode once I conjure too many multiple scenarios in my brain and then as if ticking on a machine, it starts weaving these elaborate sequences I deem fit only for fictional accounts. Hemingway wrote A Moveable Feast...

One of my quieter friends, while on a trip to a beach standing on the ferry showed me some seagulls flying above the muddy waters. He said, look above you and stretch your vision as far as you may so that you remember this moment and me. I was so overwhelmed with the surroundings and his words, considering I was very young then, that I kept my eyes focused on the flying seagulls for a long time until our other friends dragged us out of the ferry. Such a sweet, passing moment but one that still finds me in the grip of memories till date whenever I think of that trip. My friend reiterated how he found melancholy in the flight of the seagulls and because I was a tad too softhearted back then I saw myself searching for the sorrow and misery of their flight. It didn't help that we both spoke about the passage of time and our tirade through the bouncing college life that we were supposed to leave in another year or two for our graduation. I kept the conversation in my head for a long t...

'Shut your eyes and see', wrote James Joyce. And what is it that we shall see, sadly no one wrote a manual for it. Why is it that some people can see things the way they are while others just fail to look beyond the superficiality we are presented with? I wish there were an easy answer. As I sit here, writing behind the computer screen wishing for a boon to understand the mechanism of finding answers to the many questions that plague my existence, it's hard not to feel dejected and cynical about expressing it. A friend sent me a quote about Zero. It reads as follows:  The terms 'void' and 'zero' do not imply that nothing is present. 'Zero' is a point from which the scope for progress is infinite, and 'zero' is complete in itself.  It's this nothingness I am afraid of, aren't we all? There is a vacuum inside us that we all fear. Some people go insane trying to figure out the meaning of this void that dominates our psyche. Oth...

I got caught up and obsessed with sculptural edifices for the entire day yesterday. Somehow a dream from Jhumpa Lahiri's An Unaccustomed Earth made me think of winding, narrow brick lanes and stone sculptures set on pedestals, looking over pedestrians and tourists walking in their slow pace. I ended up browsing pinterest and creating a sculpture board there, pinning and collecting more than 150 sculpture images in about two hours. Was it worth spending two hours on looking at pictures? I definitely think yes. All sorts of stories and theories accumulated in my mind while staring at each one of them. I saw the classical sculptures by Michaelangelo, Bernini, in ancient Greek and Hellenistic styles, by Auguste Rodin as also a lot of garden sculptures and with experimental material usage like hairpins, plastic, masking tape, brown paper. It amazed me and filled me with an acute curiosity to know of what went through the sculptor's mind when he embarked on creating one of his cre...

(Artwork by Jonathan Kwegyir Aggrey) रविवारी वर्तमानपत्रात 'इस्तंबुलचा सुगंध' म्हणून एक लेख वाचला. त्यातली छायाचित्रं पाहून मला ओरहान पामुक यांच्या 'इस्तंबूल' या पुस्तकाची प्रकर्षाने आठवण झाली. आणि वाचता वाचता माझा कुठल्यातरी गोष्टीवरून बहिणीशी खटका उडाला, हे लिहिताना माझा हात किती कापरा झालाय. सर्वांची दृष्टी निराळी हे मान्य पण एखाद्या गोष्टीवर एवढी टोकाची भूमिका का असावी? आपल्याला न पटणाऱ्या गोष्टी ऐकून घेण्यात काय वाईट आहे? किंबहुना हा समजूतदारपणा दाखविण्याचा थोडा प्रयत्न तरी आपण करू नये का? बघता बघता नवीन वर्षाचा पहिला महिना संपला सुद्धा. वाचायला तर खूप काही घेतलय, लिहायला देखील, ते कागदावर मांडायला हवं तेवढं वेळेवर. बऱ्याचदा गोष्टी मनातच राहून जातात, त्या सांगितल्या जात नाहीत, मग त्यांची घुसमट होते, त्या तिथेच दबल्या जातात. एखाद्या नॉस्टाल्जिक संध्याकाळी मग त्या आपल्याला आठवतात. त्यावर आपण मनातल्या मनात तेव्हाही उहापोह करतो पण त्या व्यक्त होतच नाही. ही आठवण मग कितीतरी वर्ष आपल्याला सतवत राहते. आणि कधीतरी मग अशी कागदावर उतरते. सांगायचच झालं तर पामु...

We stare at the young girl chasing a yellow butterfly On the summer roads that lead from Nothing to Nowhere. And the Grey Man that waits on the road from Nothing to Nowhere Does not care how the breezes and butterflies move their four wings- But the young girl chases the yellow butterfly Happiness.... what is the dust that lies on its wings? Oh, How I love Edith Sitwell. She believed that Poetry is the deification of reality, and one of its purposes is to show that the dimensions of man are, as Sir Arthur Eddington said, 'half way between those of an atom and a star.' Perhaps, all that is happening now has happened in another world ages ago. Bit of a dreamy writing this is but something that we all long for, don't we? I like the very Indian essence that arises with colours and liveliness that springs into action when happiness comes knocking on our doors. It is a dreamy after-thought that 'love being the essence of life' still gets recognition among p...

As I reread excerpts from Rilke's Letters to a young poet while also rummaging through my memory for old images from a time long ago, it amuses me how much life is entwined within poetry and fiction. The late Swedish poet, Tomas Transtromer wrote in The Blue House about the open terrain which was once a garden and now wilderness, the house resembling a child's drawing. I am intrigued by that drawing. I wonder if it will have a small red roofed house with a chimney and flower garden, with blue skies and the sun shining bright over a small pathway lined with shrubs. This is my drawing. It has fascinated me all these years, refusing to fade from my memory. Many other things have been forgotten but this house with its red roof stands fresh and surprisingly in 2D. Transtromer writes about an amateur painting hung over the bed representing a ship with seventeen sails, rough sea and a wind which the gilded frame cannot subdue, The wind blows in my hair and sends a chill down my ...

Post-exam contemplations throw a lot of weird thoughts in my mind! They make me restless, almost anxious and leave a severe bitter feeling as to the possible career mistakes I've made so far. Yes, it happens. The urban planning and development reading material already made me ponder over the unemployment and youth factors of which, turns out, I am quite an active member. I am a voluntarily unemployed person according to the definitions in the textbooks. But we know better than to believe these definitions, don't we? I saw a particularly funny GIF that showed a young man in beard running recklessly through a dense forest with the caption- young people tired with society are running into wilderness. My first thought was, what are 'we' young people running away from? What does society do to us or we to society that we feel like running away from civilization? I really believe we are rebels without a cause. Most of us, that is. We get bored easily, tired quickly, disi...

गुलज़ार- उनकी बातों में, और शब्दों में जो सादगी है, जिसे हम सब तराशते रह जाते है और अनदेखा भी कर देते है क्योंकी आस पास की चमक इतनी तेज है। कुछ सच्चे और सीधे 'लब्ज़' की तलाश में, मैं निकली हूँ। छोटी-छोटी बातों में ख़ुशी नजर आने के लिए अपनी आँखों और सोच का दायरा बढ़ाना जरूरी हो गया है। हमारी 'जिंदगी' की परिभाषा भी कितनी सुलझी हुई और उसी वक़्त कितनी गहरी होती है। सभी से तो हम बात नहीं कर पाते है, मगर क्या ख़ामोशी की जुबान समझने वाले लोग, सिर्फ अब उंगलियों पर गिनने की तादाद में रह गए है? ऐसे लोगों से हमारी मुलाकातें कम क्यों हो गयी है? क्या उन्हें अपनी ख़ामोशी से इतना प्यार होता है, की वो किसी और को अपने इर्द- गिर्द तो आने देते है, पर अपने अंदर की गहराइयों में झाँकने का मौका नहीं देते? क्या इसीलिए, 'कविता' का जन्म हुआ, जो रूह की आवाज को जुबान पर ला देती हैं?! I must be suffering from mid-week crisis! Why else would I feel such a load of emotions within me? I am tempted to dance. But just the thought of putting up a performance for a friend's wedding has me all f...

AAH, Annie! I remember the first time I heard Arundhati Roy's name. It was in 1996-97 when she won the Booker Prize for her novel, The God of Small Things. It was considered as a major achievement by a young novelist, Indian, mind you at that time. I still remember her frozen image on the TV screen, the curls dominating her delicate face something about which made her so different and stand out from the crowd. About a decade later, I entered Architecture school. I was still fascinated and hugely obsessed with her. She became a one time writer, published that one and only novel, won the booker and was an architect by education. It was enough to be transfixed with her. In the very first week of architecture school, we, first years were gathered in the big seminar hall and shown "In which Annie gives it those ones". When I saw the title I thought, what kind of absurd grammar error was that. Then, Arundhati Roy's name flashed on the screen and I kept my patience. Th...

There is so much chaos in and around our lives. Everywhere one looks at, there is noise, outrage, unhappiness, distress and uncertainty. When did this happen? We have become such slaves to lifestyles that chaos has become an essential part of us. Don't we all long for some solitude? That ME time, away from people and places increasingly! There are retreats now customised solely to help us achieve this inner peace and calm that we have been searching for from the vagaries of our busy lives. Nature has become a friend suddenly. So many people go on weekend trails and hikes on mountains, which is absolutely great. It also tests our physical fitness while really getting us acquainted newly with the many facets of nature. We miss out on so many things during the daily chaos. Even children who were thought to live stress-free lives for generations are now found to suffer from depression and anxiety. This is becoming worrisome. In our longing for better lifestyles and living conditi...

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things. Does this happen with everyone?  If there is a soul, it is a mistake to think that it is given to us fully made. It makes itself here, throughout our life. And life is nothing but the long and agonizing labor of giving birth. When the s...