Tia

safari

2012-02-24T17:05:00.003+05:30

went to the desert

rode a camel

and cried when i saw

the threads that punctured its nose.

all to control it.

all for my comfort

i went to the desert

and rode a camel

Tia's paper planes

2012-02-03T17:34:00.005+05:30

David Cameron threw a fit,

cause no one wanted his planes.

“Millions of pounds I’ve given you, you poor third world estate!!!

Ingrates!! Scoundrels!! Scumbags!! Oh my heart, it pains...”

his voice floated along the international corridor of trade.

Meanwhile the phone lines, between India and France

were constantly busy

‘cause Dr. Singh’s heart was entranced.

Sarkozy was his man

He knew it from the start.

Why, that right wing approach in socialist France,

was Brilliant, was Astounding, was a breath of fresh air.

Manmohan was so smitten, he bought India French planes

And held Sarkozy’s hand in secret alley ways.

They created nuclear energy , in India and in France

And as the world fought with planes

And nuked itself.

Manmohan and Sarkozy

With flowers in their hair

Said “make love not war”

And showed us the way.

unsettled

2012-01-03T04:22:00.004+05:30

when change is around the corner

the curtains remain still

for they know not what the storm ahead brings

peace, or torment within.

Truth

2011-12-22T15:51:00.004+05:30

The truth. The truth is I am scared. The truth is I love you. The truth is that we will never know with our heads or our eyes ears and noses, we will only know with our hearts. The truth is that I am free when I feel chained and that I have never been chained at all. The truth is that too many words can never be used to explain the truth. The truth is simple and plain. The truth is present in every moment and is recreated and broken in every other moment. The truth is that I do no need more knowledge or love than I have now and neither do you. The truth is I choose to walk this way and so do you. The truth is that my dreams, when I sleep, talk to me. The truth is I shouldn't give a rats ass about my ego or yours, but I should give all the rats asses and mine for my love and yours. The truth is that I don't think when I write. The truth is that I am here now. The truth is, I can't promise more.

sure

2011-11-26T13:22:00.002+05:30

unsure voices reaching a crescendo.

unsure voices wilting away

unsure voices coming from behind

walking too fast for anything to stay

unsure voices should just stand still and let the weight of their being reach the floor.

to be

grounded, possible

sure

english

2011-11-26T00:44:00.003+05:30

she writes in english. she laughs. inconsequential colonial hangover. guilt ridden language. you are mine and i use you to communicate. colonial hangover, common language of my different families. mass migrations and loss. partition or freedom? perspective? guilt ridden language, i use you. guilt ridden language one day i will love you. i will forgive you. i will forgive me.

while listening to what the water gave us

2011-11-26T00:27:00.003+05:30

covered in cat hair and a volley of parsi names swim about me. Soon to be caught and placed on pieces of paper. Posted with Homi Bhabha's face on them. stamped. sent. what the water gave me plays in the background as I play around with the paper foreground. list. name. list. name. face. memory. smile. laugh. question mark. blank. a sea of people I don't know lie before me. Names and titles. and family. Erica and Rustom have the pleasure of inviting you to the wedding of their daughter, it reads. It reads? I read. Trippy music. trippy names. faranushk, faranoukh, freny, firdosha, farhan, farheed. pay heed. they are there now. i look at these names and wonder how long they will survive. I won't know. For now, i dip my toes, i plunge my ankles, knees and stomach. head and soul into the names. They revolve, float and move around me. the sea of people. I know not all of them. maybe one day I will. maybe they will survive. for now, the song is almost over. time to hit repeat.

underarm cleavage

2011-09-14T22:24:00.005+05:30

My television tells me a story. A girl sits in a metro. The stagnant air magically moves her tee and she finds men staring down her now rearranged neckline. Not an immodest girl, she quickly rises and grabs one of the hanging handles to steady herself. Her dignity restored, we are left to marvel at her bright white armpits. ‘Underarms’ I believe is the polite word. At any rate, not only are we the viewers astounded that her white underarms match the ghostly white electronically adjusted complexion of her face but so are the men who were ogling at her cleavage just a few seconds ago. She gives them a censuring yet playful smile. We are shown an image of her applying a roll-on whitening deodorant and thus the mystery is solved! That's where the magical unreal underarms come from. We are taken back to the cleavage oglers and armpit woman sharing a moment before we are thrown into the next advertisement.

I stare at the screen. I had been warned by my mother, that the country was becoming increasingly obsessed with armpits. We had deodorants and antiperspirants, we had powders and creams. I had also been warned that skin-lightening products aka 'fairness creams' had now extended their reach to a majority of sunblocks and moisturisers and face washes. However the marriage between deodorants and fairness creams was completely new to me. I stared at the screen and laughed. It’s the only response that I could create.

In the 90s I was told by television that unless I was fair I wouldn’t get a husband or a job, hell I wouldn’t even be able to buy my father coffee. In the 2000s we expanded that portfolio to arms and legs. And now underarms. I guess the next step will be unexposed areas and perhaps later we could do my innards. Nice white livers and stomachs are essential for me to have a full and happy life, I will be told. And who knows maybe one day one of those nice boys in the ads will see that my cleavage and underarms are the same shade as my intestines and ask me out.

Love and lungs.

2011-09-08T19:42:00.004+05:30

Balloons. Was thinking about balloons today. About my birthday this year where my friends filled the room with balloons and freshly baked desserts. It was a sugar themed party, in my honour. And I marvelled at the love that went into that party. The air from their lungs, the effort to bake and cook, the perfectly themed day. The love. I marvelled at the love I was surrounded by.

and then I marvelled at the love I am surrounded by.

The return...in progress and perfect

2011-08-26T22:01:00.007+05:30

Been in Pune for only two days. My father is asking the dog not to play with the cat because he's teaching the cat to hunt. I smile. Ma and I just came back from music class. There was a tabla player. My feet moved to his beats and remembered my dancing days. I need to know where I am placed. Or do I just stay put and make space here. I have no job. it doesn't scare me. Where do I go? research? activism? neither? It'll sort itself out. Now, for now I have my words, my books, all the love in the world. The rain falls on me as we walk down the road. As we walk down any road. The monsoons have blessed my country and my city. My cities. I have lived in two in these 8 days. I haven't seen my sister yet. Not in reality. I saw her smiling at me through a web cam. She's a bus ride away. Just a bus ride away but I have been asked to come later. "Stay home, Tia, take rest." She said. She's taking care of me. She's drawing boundaries for me. I have to do them myself soon. For now I have her. Des'ree plays in the background. How can her songs never be old for me? It's a rhetorical question, move on. Music. In class they sang a bhajan and a song for Ganesh. Krishna had a song too. Should I take it up. I knew some of the songs and sung them in my head. Scared to join. Scared because I know not what my commitment level is. I want to work. Will I have to leave my Pune? My music? my dance? My loves are in Mumbai as well. I will be living there soon. I will be living there soon? Macy Gray is my sound track. I smile. It'll all work out. For now I am here. typing. being.

My father is teaching the cat to hunt, he taught me a long time ago.

on balance

2011-08-15T15:39:00.002+05:30

She's unpacking. I'm doing the reverse. She's greeting and getting to know a new home. I'm saying bye to the cracks and crevices that I know. In tandem we move, across the Channel, in different nations we keep balance. Together, apart, as always.

change

2011-08-15T15:12:00.001+05:30

packing. throwing away. keeping. purging. loving. being. packing. going home.

Port Meadows

2011-07-28T14:45:00.007+05:30

Picnic at Port Meadows. We took momos from the Wednesday Market, cupcakes, ginger chocolate and dried fruit to keep us company. We walked over bridges and marshy lands. We saw ducks and geese. We saw English cow and sheep. We walked for half an hour to find a perfect spot. By the river, on a wooden ledge, we placed our mat and ate together. A swan swam by and made eyes at us. It moved gingerly towards us. Eyeing our food. We stared back. We may not have bills but we have wills and piercing eyes. Hers blue, mine brown we stared at the shiny coal in a catchment of white fluff. Three sets of eyes danced together. And thus 20 minutes passed, till democracy prevailed and the majority ruled. The swan swam softly away, the battle won, the humans rejoiced. We sat back and enjoyed the momos that had by now absorbed all the chutney. As if the chutney had never been separate from the momo. The chutney, absorbed into the core of the momo was as much a part of it as the thick flattened rice that protected the soft vegetables within. The weather was cloudy but bright. Perfect. Cool and crisp. Dogs jumped into the river and splashed with the geese. Then followed their human families, wet to the core, happy to the soul. Tongues hanging out, tails swishing in the air, paws bounding on the grass. We laughed. We ate. We thought of the two years that had passed. Picnic at Port Meadows.

2011-07-25T00:34:00.002+05:30

How do we make amends? How do we move into the future without forgetting the past? Without holding onto the past? How do we bring justice? Who defines justice? Is that our ultimate aim? Or is it peace?

Techno emotions

2011-07-21T12:17:00.001+05:30

My father: We are in the text ages, Tia. I less than three you!

God I miss home.

To the strong women

2011-07-20T04:04:00.004+05:30

To the strong women in my life. To the strong women who have taught me to love and laugh and cry and break down and rise and fall and move and flow. To the strong women who have broken my heart and helped me patch it up. To the strong women who have made me defend myself and set me free. Those who made me aggressive and loving. To the strong women who affected me by nourishing me or pushing me down. To the strong women who taught me to trust and also draw boundaries. To the strong women who made me who I am. To you, I raise my hat.

On Love

2011-07-14T06:00:00.006+05:30

What is love?

At 1:30 am, as I desperately try to sleep, I contemplate, "What is love?". For the record, this has not helped my ability to sleep but I still continue with my question. I don't know what love is exactly. I know how it makes me feel. Love is that which makes me stronger and want to do more. Love is that which makes me be the best I can be in that moment. Love frees. Love emancipates. Anything else, as well meaning as it may be, confines me and is not love.

At 1:33 a.m. Love is freedom and strength, vitality and unconditional. At 1:33 a.m. this is all I want love to be.

Goodbyes

2011-06-20T03:58:00.005+05:30

One day my friend, we sat in your room and drank tea. We talked about the problem of our being. What were we? Were we rivers that flowed freely through the world that touched all whom we passed by and were touched by them? We didn’t want strong ties that would weigh us down. We wanted freedom. The freedom to just move on. To move to a new place to a new lover to a new life. To keep living and learning by experiencing. But we knew that we also wanted to be mountains. Strong and solid. Rooted. Grounded. Supporting others and being enhanced by all who we were attached to. This was our problem: were we rivers or mountains? We never reached a conclusion because the conversation turned to more serious topics like Bollywood and the charisma of Sonu Nigam in your country.

Yesterday I read your words about the sorrows of saying goodbye. About the difficulty of saying goodbye and my heart broke. Through the broken translation that the internet provided me, your feelings and soul, as they always do, came out and caught me. I thought of the day we talked about our problem and realised that it was not a problem. We don’t have to choose and we have never chosen between the river and the mountain. We have spent our whole lives flowing, experiencing and loving. We have been rivers and we have been mountains built on the stability and strength of the love that we have experienced. We are the rivers and we are the mountains.

Your words were true, we will always have to say goodbye to these beautiful people we meet and welcome new ones into our lives. I cannot lessen that pain though I wish I could. It is the pain of the river mountain. It is the pain of change. It is the pain of love. I can only hug you and thank you for being and becoming a part of my life.

sieves and other social skills

2011-06-08T15:20:00.005+05:30

I am sick and decided that this would be the best time to write a blog post. It's like people wanting to get high on LSD and write songs, I am currently high on mucus. So am in my tracks in a brown furry sheet that is keeping my hot-cold body that shivers on the outside and is wreaked with heat inside. I have hugged my computer, sung and talked to myself and to several inanimate objects in the house. Yes indeed, my filter for appropriate behaviour is vanishing or the holes in my sieve are getting wider. I love these moments. It's so much fun. You babble and talk, people give you hot drinks and pick up your phone when it rings. I live with six people, ahh six people of love. It's the good life. The illness has affected my capacity to sleep, eat and study but hey, how important are those things when compared to being pampered and feeling a little out of body-ish? Now if you excuse me, I believe the toaster is calling me and we haven't caught up in ages....

Re-turning

2011-06-03T16:31:00.003+05:30

I finally chose a date to fly home today. It seemed like a strange decision to make. I wanted to go back but choosing the date for my one way ticket would signify the end of this course and this state of uncertainty that I am in right now. There is sometghing so comforting about uncertainty and chaos, you don't have to be responsible for all that happens. It's time to let go of that now. So I have a ticket to ride, and I will be home and in the arms of all those I love in two months. The monsoons will greet me and I will greet them. I will dance in the rain in my garden and play with my dogs, I will hug my parents till they get bored of it, I will talk to my sister till she throws me out of her dorm, I will laugh with my love till his cheeks pain from smiling and laughing, I will meet my friends and family. I will meet the new members of my family and have direct relationships with them. A wise and beautiful friend told me today, 'The sun shall take a southerly turn and so shall you.'

It's time to go home.

A. Roy

2011-06-01T16:18:00.006+05:30

Apparently Arundhati Roy is talking at the Brunei Gallery on the 5th of June. I mailed as soon as someone told me. Why? Here come my explanations. Do I agree with everything Roy says, no. Do I agree with her tone, no. But do I value what she says? Yes. She speaks about issues and has enough international cum sex appeal for people to start listeninhg, criticising (and often attacking) her words and thoughts. Through these discussions, important view points that were sidelined are then discussed in more mainstream settings and not just in elite left leaning tea sessions. That is her value for me.

Apparently the talk is booked and there are no more spaces left. It so strange. She stays in a country where both the left and the right criticise her. She comes to SOAS and people want to hear her. Will she move to an environment where she will be heard or where people want to hear her I wonder? Brings out a bigger issue, where are we supposed to reside? What if people really don't care about what a person says or is too threatened by what the person says or if the speaker is not communicating in a manner that reaches an audience. But people want to hear you elsewhere. What do you do? leave and go to a place where you are heard or do stay back where your heart is?

Well, random life questions aside, Roy is coming to Brunei and there are no more places left for the talk. Ironically, Ram Guha* is coming over to Oxford and I can go for his talk, though I am not quite as keen on it as Roy's. C'est la vie baby, c'est la vie.

*Guha and Roy had a little hate fest in 2000.

Wo(l)e is me

2011-06-01T00:27:00.004+05:30

Awww man, Wole Soyinka is talking in London tomorrow and I will be in Oxford. The man whose beautiful poems and soft words, gave words to ideas and ideas to words in my head as an undergraduate student will be 2 hours away from me. But one day I won't have exams and I won't have to study and hopefully, Soyinka will talk near me. I'll go that time.

Man, I was a litt major once. You have my heart, words and poems, ideas and stories, you have my heart. Right now the social sciences have my brain, but you literature, have my heart.

political fission

2011-05-31T20:33:00.003+05:30

Apparently Merkel wants to shut down all nuclear power plants in Germany by 2022. This article says it's all a political and a bid to stay in power. But heyyyy, if the way for her to stay in power is working towards replacing nuclear power, perhaps politics ain't that bad.

You are leaving the English Sector

2011-05-31T14:25:00.007+05:30

Maybe my mug says, 'You are leaving the American Sector' but it stands for much more. This is my good luck mug now, it’s the 'come to Berlin mug'. That’s what Isabella told me when she gave it to me brimmed with chocolates. The chocolates made her case stronger. She wanted a ‘You are leaving the British Sector’ mug but the allied forces were not kind enough to create such a mug or situation for me. A full German breakfast with sausages and beer has been described. A vegetarian sausage will be provided for my, as yet, vegetarian soul. All when I leave the ~~American~~ British Sector and go see her in Berlin. In the meanwhile, in England we decided to be wild and leave the country so we went to Wales. The tour guide relished his tales about decapitating the heads of kings and while also giving us more sedate stories about the history of the monks, the forests and land, the peasants and the problems of Wales and England. He told us where the stories of these states met and where they moved apart. A few Welsh words were thrown in and we were advised to memorise them, but don’t worry he said, everyone in Wales speaks English and you will be able to communicate with them. Perhaps the bus was supposed to heave a sigh of relief to be able to communicate with the natives but it didn’t bring about that strong a collective sigh. But people were distracted. The gruesome stories were making me fall asleep. Isabella, my friend from Berlin and my housemate from last year was looking out of the window. A couple behind were flirting using cultural differences as a point of bonding. A few people to the right were staring intently at maps and discussing their lives. Together we made our way through England in the best role possible – as tourists.

Isabella and I have collectively decided to retire in the English country side and have cream tea. The number of scones that we have consumed in the span of a weekend is not funny. But we kept our stiff upper lip and went on with it. After a few teas and an Indian meal on the first day, we spent a day in Cardiff. In this exotic land we decided that we would consume strictly Welsh food. However, Cardiff was keen on us having an international experience. The restaurants were the chains that dot the rest of the country and we looked in vain for a Welsh pub in the city centre. We settled for walking down the bay, where there was an international food festival with small stalls representing different countries. I had a vegetarian Paella which with its oily and lovely veneer makes me think of veggie biryani. And Isabella had food from the Caribbean stall. We decided to leave the German food for Berlin. Then we walked through the city’s cultural hall where people were practicing the violin in different corners and others were break dancing on the side. A cassette was playing somewhere. My mistake, a CD or an MP3, (am I getting old?) was playing more violins, in an effort to give the students some sort of framework to rely on. People seemed to be playing different songs and a cacophony of violins ensued, while people in purple and yellow jumpers did hand stands and splits. The architecture was just as disjointed as the activities and the sound. Purple-grew stone exteriors with black spiked doors and beige layered walls. It was a mixed space, open for use. It seemed like a nice area to learn. My aim of being a good tourist and coming back with hundreds of or at least some keepsakes fell through and I was highly disappointed in myself. Hopefully in the future I will be a better tourist and pick up the magnets and pencil tops that have ‘CARDIFF’ written on them. We did take our coffees and sit by the bay and look at the sea and people around. Little children, ever so polite and walking with their families dotted the landscape. This seemed so different from Oxford which is teeming with 20-25 year olds. It felt calm and comfortable. Isabella and I caught up after ages. It was strange to talk so much, but there was much to talk about. We saw Tintern Abbey and took the train/tram to and from the main city centre. There were posters of The Lady Boys of Bangkok and Bombay Bollywood, both musicals/cabaret performances that would take place in Cardiff. ‘Bombay Bollywood’ had about one or two south Asians in it. It amused me that everyone else there seemed white. I guess if you look at the dance sequences in Hindi songs nowadays, the demographics of Bombay Bollywood might actually be quite accurate. Isabella talked about her recent trip to Thailand and the lovely food that she ate, the sand and the people. We had a light dinner, of rice and dal with salad and Isabella said she would marry me if she liked the food. She liked the food. The next day we were tourists again. We went to Magdalen college, crept into the restricted area and saw deer from afar. Then we walked through the chapel and gardens. Thought of again retiring in England, sipping tea and going for long walks. We are not sure about our place of residence. I imagine an overgrown garden, my hair in an untidy knot, with brightly coloured clothes that are worn out with sun, wind, rain and kneeling in soil to tend to my plants. The house will be a little crocked and in shambles, quirky is a word that will be associated with me. Isabella wants a castle. We’ll figure it out. I have also promised my sister to retire with her in a similar house in India with hundreds of cats so there are several issues that need to be worked out. After seeing Deer and second hand books, we met friends for more tea and scones. I went wild and had a coffee this time round. Then we moved on to the pub where Bill Clinton may or may not have inhaled as a student in Oxford. Margaret Thatcher apparently has also visited this pub when she was a student. Her drug induced existence has not been described in history nor on the walls of the Turf Tavern. After Ginger beers and chips, I headed home. Being a tourist in the city you are a resident is very tiring. All that happiness and sunshine is more than the soul can take. I went home and cracked open a book to feel better. The next morning my friend went back to Berlin. We had a quiet tea and readymade scones in the morning. It will be our last tea in England for a while. Retirement is not for a few more decades. So I am sipping from my American Sector mug and hoping the magic will kick in. Perhaps, in a month we’ll be having an almost traditional German breakfast with vegetarian substitutes and enjoying the relative warmth of Berlin.

out of towners

2011-05-24T15:09:00.009+05:30

"How English is today!" a friend exclaimed as we made our way to the Trout for a birthday lunch. It was grey and windy, but not oppressively so. This declaration of the obvious englishness of the day came from a group consisting of Indian, Dutch, South African, Canadian-Kenyan and American students. After two years in the country we feel qualified to determine the extent of englishness of situations. It was a beautiful walk, longer than expected. It took me an hour and a half as I walked from Cowley road to Jericho where we all met up and then walked to the Trout in Wolvercote. We went past the beautiful Port Meadows and it struck me how little of Oxford I really know. Last year my world was city centre since that's where I lived, studied and socialised. Anything that was over twenty minutes on foot really was off my radar. But that's Oxford, in a small space that is the city centre there is enough to make you believe that the world starts and ends in that space. There are enough eateries, lectures, classes, performances, shops, chapels, choirs, bells and fields to make you believe that the world is made up of that intense and highly stratified space. But the secret is, it's not.

Because when you move a little out of that area you hit Cowley road and beyond that is the river and the river, like all rivers, can take you anywhere. It flows through the city, and it flows out where it becomes the Thames. It becomes a big city river. Or if you move in the opposite direction you could go to port meadows and see sheep and cows grazing, old men walking their furry dogs and broken buildings that have been allowed to age unlike the protected and preserved city of Oxford that at some point is beautiful and interesting but at times feels like a botox filled beauty queen. All the buildings are stagnant and cannot change. The touristic appeal of the city lies in its structures and architecture. The justification and validity of its strength lies in its age and assumed maturity. The perception is that the power of the city lies in its spires and structures and without them, the city would cease to be. Thus change, if it were to happen, can only take place outside. In port meadow and on the outskirts of the city centre, things have changed. Some parts have fallen apart. Some parts are bright and lively. But they change. Organically. On the way we passed a broken down abbey, a strawberry field and several of the sites of the art festival that is going on in Oxford right now.

There was also getting marooned on Geese island. The island was a small patch of land with a lock bridge that we thought would lead to the pub. However someone unlatched the bridge and there we were, 8 Oxford students standing with a hundred angry geese staring and hissing at us. Then we saw their eggs and gingerly walked through the nesting area to get off the island. Alas, the fun about an island is that it is covered with water on all sides and until the bridge was rejoined, there was no way of moving away from the angry geese. It was a scary 15 minutes but the bridge closed again and left the geese to themselves.

After nearly two hours of walking I did make it to the Trout. Much food was eaten. A few songs were sung. and on the way back we did see the geese, staring at us, as we walked quietly. However they were English ducks and more passive aggressive about space rather than violently aggressive so we weren't too bothered. On the way we were greeted by 14 year olds rowing for races and a team of sprinters practicing. The sheep continued to chew. The dogs ran around. The wind hit our bones and we walked back to the spires that we saw in the distance.

Artists of lines

2011-05-22T20:09:00.002+05:30

Boundaries

Drawn in sand

Chalked out on boards

Dusted away

Swept out of sight

Boundaries redrawn

Forgotten

Lost

Recreated

Anew

Boundaries

For whom

Me or you?

Boundaries and lines

Where we can meet

And where we must

Like all people, leave

Boundaries

Drawn in the sand

Chalked out on boards

These boundaries are between us

These lines we draw and redraw together

And with others in sight

The others, me, you

We draw together

Simultaneously

In succession too

All of this is a process

A process of change

A process of being

Individuals

In a maze

Boundaries that limit

And protect

That shield

And when they change

let in

Make vulnerable.

These boundaries.

This massive space of life

Fractured and reconstructed

By the artists

The artists of lines.

thinking

2011-05-22T15:33:00.004+05:30

hello little blog. I am not sure what form or shape you are supposed to take. I have left you alone for a while. Yesterday I went for a barbecue and a few friends discussed their blogs and how they can track their changes through the posts on their blogs. A sort of a internet based pencil mark with which your parents marked your height on the wall. So my little internet based pencil marker what do I do with you? Do we continue with this process of writing and publishing? I am not sure yet. Not just yet.

La buena educación

2011-04-30T02:06:00.002+05:30

Right now, my friend and I are drinking out of a glass, my glass. We both keep refilling it and working on our theses. It all happened automatically, no questions asked. This is familiarity I guess.

I like it.

Karen Harrison

2011-04-22T15:47:00.005+05:30

A friend died. I just found out through the strangest of places, facebook. The last thing I read on her wall was 'Thanks, my darling slapper! XXX' and I want to laugh and cry at the same time. It's strange to say that she has left us when her post has so much energy and makes her seem alive. I am still digesting the fact that a person, as inspirational and vibrant as Karen has passed away. There are so many ways to describe her, but more than anything else, I remember her optimism and belief in people. As a 24 year old cynic to see such faith in a woman who had lived twice as long and had experienced far more gendered abuse in her male dominated job, our beautiful, intelligent, train-driving, union leading, kick-ass-costume-creating Karen was still full of light and hope about humanity. That is the Karen I will always remember; well that and maybe some of her best bawdy jokes. And though I want to cry Karen, I can imagine you conking me on the head for the thought. So I sit in the sun and celebrate your words and your jokes, your actions and strength, your life and values.

Karen Harrison, I celebrate you

Critical thinking: I

2011-04-20T20:59:00.002+05:30

Wordsworth's Daffodils: the ugly truth.

Easter egg!

2011-04-20T20:52:00.002+05:30

My friend's mother just sent him a ginormous Easter egg from Iceland. It says Lakkris Paskaegg, which could mean 'Easter Egg', or 'Happy Easter', or 'Happy Easter Egg' or 'The Queen's a Badass', but then I don't read Icelandic so we'll never know.

Life's like that sometimes.

Oxford. drizzles return.

2011-04-19T02:43:00.003+05:30

It was sunny for a while, but then my drizzly hair frizzly weather returned.

the weaver

2011-04-11T16:21:00.005+05:30

So there was this girl and she was writing a story. Many stories actually. All these stories she had heard and seen, and which were linked to her own. The stories sat before her and smiled benevolently. They were waiting their turn to be woven into her tapestry. Unconditionally, calmly and tirelessly waiting.

But she looked at them and was scared by their trust. What if she screwed up? What if she didn't write these stories with the dignity they deserved? Would she find the connections between the different voices? What if, as she brought out the essence of the stories, her ultimate story represented no one?

Someone had told her never to be fearful while weaving. That she would know the quality and texture of the threads and if she worked hard, the tapestry would weave itself through her. But she had to turn that wheel and keep turning it...

So here goes, you ready my beautiful strands of thread? I feel I am...

Noble Savages

2011-04-09T21:21:00.005+05:30

I am an Indian,
better get your mindset in your head.

It was the late 90s. They were called the Noble Savages. They wrote a funky song about being Indian. They called their album Digging in the Nose. It was love.

Good-luu-k

2011-04-09T16:19:00.003+05:30

Was thinking of home and one of our favourite old Irani joints, GoodLuck Cafe, after seeing these photos. They had the best loo ever, well maybe second now to my college library loo with a wooden plank for a toilet seat. But back to Goodluck Cafe, it has a loo with an open window with no real glass to speak of. Yet I never remember being awkwardly caught in that room. All Goodluck I say!

ps: you have to scroll down on the page to see the Goodluck pictures.

Dancing ways

2011-04-09T00:11:00.006+05:30

Read about my friend's upcoming dance performance. His troupe's piece is called Dropout and it is a taking back of sorts. A group of people who were told that they were not enough are taking those labels away. They are wearing their ballet shoes and affirming their own belief in their ability to dance. And I love this idea of empowerment.

I am drawn between these two, seemingly divergent paths. One is the path of peace and one is the path of passion. A conflict arises when obstacles, internal or external, come between me and my passion. What do I do then? If I were told I was not enough, I'd probably peace out. Thank the person very much but have no interest in continuing with an activity with someone who has no faith in me. I would take up something new and fall in love with this new activity. Thus I would not have to fight anyone and would be at peace. Calm and happy, under no compunction to prove my prowess to anyone and flexible enough to start afresh.

But sometimes I wonder if this route of peace comes at the cost of passion? I really love some spaces and activities that I give up. But I can't walk these paths together. They require very different forms of thinking, feeling and acting. Thus I return to choosing between two paths. Fighting off parties to pursue a passion upsets my plans of being peaceful but long term how feasible is it to keep my interests dependent on a lack of conflict?

So where does that leave me?

Maybe I should redefine what I want. Do I want to prove something? To go back to my friend, is his group proving anything? Are they fighting external sources? Indirectly perhaps, but their main aim is to follow their passion and just be. What could be more peaceful than that? A group of people filled with love and energy for an activity, drawn together by this love and working towards making it a part of their lives. So maybe I don't have to pick and chose my paths. All I have to do is reinterpret why I am working towards a goal. If the answer is because it is something that I love and am passionate about. If the goal is positive in nature and not just an attempt to prove I am right and capable; then peace and passion will not be different paths but one way that I can travel through.

Thanks Amak.

Images Oxford

2011-04-07T12:44:00.002+05:30

My hidden garden on the way to the library.

My favourite night sight.

Language and other feminist arguments

2011-04-01T21:06:00.011+05:30

- You're such a pussey

- 'Wussy', you mean.

- no pussy. i.e. weak.

I tried to explain to my friend that he meant 'wussy' and insisted that he called me a wussy. I am not entirely sure that threatening people to call you a wussy, is a very dignified act but it was the ethics of the situation. Having a vagina did not make me weak, I told him. I was told not to get all development studies and critical on his language but unfortunately such meticulous powers of reasoning did not stop me from correcting his language and his subconscious ideas of power and strength.

It did not stop me till I realised that I had no real understanding of where the word wussy came from. Its proximity to the word I was avoiding and the similarity of their meanings frightened me. So I did what all rational and educated people do when they are confronted by a problem - I googled it. And lo and behold, wussy could actually be a different form of pussy. I had essentially asked him to call me exactly what I didn't want him to call me. My fig leaf protection came from the Oxford English Dictionary, which stated that it did not know what the origin of the word was and, hey, if the Oxford English Dictionary can hold onto ignorance so can I. With every shred of dignity I had, since having asked my housemate to call me a wussy, I held on to the power of ignorance and faith. I faithfully believed that this north American slang of unknown origin first recorded in the 1980s was not a derivative of pussy, I held on to the belief that an anatomical part, associated with the bodies, of my gender was not being used to reassert false beliefs about the inherent weakness of women, I held on to the belief that I was really really right about this.

And if I am wrong, I think people should stop being such insensitive dickheads and be aware of the verbal repression they exercise in everyday life.

astrology

2011-03-30T04:58:00.007+05:30

water. mutable. pisces.

earth. fixed. taurus.

We were writing, we were working and then suddenly we were discussing astrology. The world wide web constructed charts for us and voila, there went a few hours of work time.

What did we learn? I am almost all piscean. all water. all fish. all me. There is a bit of bull, strong and solid, stable (some say slow but I stubbornly ignore that) but the amount of fish in my chart shocked and irritated me. Where would my originality lie if all I did was act like a fish all the time? Where was my fire? My strength? My ability to fight back when cornered? As a fish all I have are powers of quiet sensitivity, perception, deep love and tendencies of depression. I wanted fire, it seemed to be something I lacked and something that most people around me had. A little fire to protect oneself seemed vital to survive. People who overstepped boundaries could be scorched by my fire, but I apparently had none. There is no fire, just water and some earth. Disheartened by the fact that no outside agency was telling me that I had fire to fight this somewhat repressive world, I returned to work.

But now, a few days later, I see all this water and earth in me and I smile. Slowly the bull has accepted that sensitivity, perception and love make for a good combination. I don't retaliate. I try to change - both myself and my surroundings.

So this is me:

water. mutable. pisces

earth. fixed. taurus.

and don't tell anyone but there's a bit of earth. mutable. virgo. in me as well, but that's our little secret..

wisdom from her

2011-03-21T00:12:00.001+05:30

my mother texted. give love she said. ok ma, i will.

blogging, the root cause.

2011-03-15T00:23:00.001+05:30

thesis calls.

I answer

awkward pause.

blog post.

JargonNut

2011-03-14T23:59:00.005+05:30

Wrote a post about changing into a heartless academic who has drifted far from her roots; about turning into a pseudo-intellectual jargon-cramming monster with multiple syllables and 'neos' and 'posts' all over the place; in short - about turning into a Jargonaut.

My mother's reply to this was, "jargonut is more like it." Mothers always know how to put things in perspective.

Destiny

2011-03-14T16:45:00.005+05:30

In an unapologetic attempt at narcissism I looked at 'Persis' online and found that all the women are artists, designers and or writers who teach. Except for the one physicist, who was also a professor. It's destiny I tell you. I will be a writer-designer-artist, or a physicist.

I am glad I got that clarified.

Jargonaut. Fait accompli.

2011-03-14T04:16:00.002+05:30

Fait accompli. Read this term after a long long, time. A year and a half into academia means that I’ve experienced the term ‘governmentality’ more than the activisty ones I used to hear before.

'Jargonaut', I was called by a friend today. Large words are used, he said, to disguise the fact that we have nothing more to say. Do I have nothing more to say? What do I have to say? I have to say that sometimes things are not equal and sometimes things are inhumane and we should try our best to change that. We try our best to make things equal and humane. To say that, in bigger words, I am writing a thesis that will help me get an MPhil from the University of Oxford. Jargonaut. Fait accompli.

chai break

2011-03-09T06:41:00.003+05:30

1 am, back to the writing board, maybe some tea to see us through. Chocolate and coffee had come between me and my tea but I am bored of those flings and want to return to my true love - chai. I am confused. My friend gave me chocolate tea bags, I have a few different flavours, do the hills of Darjeeling call me or the smokiness of lapsang souchong? Or just good old fashioned chai. Milk and sugar and water boiled together and then spiced with tea leaves that bubble up till the rim of the vessel, till I turn off the heat and let the milk simmer down? Maybe some ginger in it as well? So many choices. Oh consumerism, how you have me.

3six5 Tia

2011-03-07T20:37:00.001+05:30

Today on the3six5: Me

3six5 is a collective diary of sorts, with one person writing for one day and the editors collection 365 such posts. On the 6th of March 2011, Tia typed for 'em.

young pain

2011-03-07T19:18:00.003+05:30

Adele sings. Her strong voice, filled with pain and love. The piano supports the quivering voice. Coaxing it to go on, to finish what it had started. The piano supports the voice with a quiet stability that is stronger and wiser than the vulnerable young voice of pain. The unimposing tempo gives the voice space to move and feel but also gives the voice boundaries and rhythm to calm down the young voice, to calm down the young pain. For these three minutes, as the piano and Adele sing, I stand suspended between these two worlds of young and old, between the hurt of the past and the strength of the present.

Thank you Amak

the song plays on

2011-03-06T15:58:00.001+05:30

Mornings. Good. Gold. Strange. Hindi songs replace Marathi that filled my ears for a few days. dinners. old friends. new. Old fears and new. New thoughts and old ideas. meshed. mashed. happiness. strength. love. beauty. rain. clouds. smiles. bass guitars. Twirls. Connections. Films. Food. Council houses. Red bricks. gentrified. jargon. Oxford. structures. wires. technology. distance. created. closed. violins play. sitars follow. the beatles lost interest. others picked up. fusion. life continues. anarchy. strength in anarchy. but we will always try to make rules and structures. we'll always try to control and curb and create equality. or say that we are. we'll always be and we'll always change. kaafir se milenge, they sing to me. Khabar kya, kya pata and then the guitar fades out. the future is unknown, fading guitar. The next song on my playlist starts and so it continues.

Tia turns 25

2011-03-03T03:53:00.001+05:30

The night before I turned 25, Ray Lamontagne sang to me. He serenaded me from under my balcony. It was beautiful.

To be fair, he might have not known he was doing that but we don’t need to acknowledge that…

Birthday

2011-03-01T04:01:00.001+05:30

Thank you for the day

And for the balloons

I have a little ukulele

In my head

And above my room

Thank you for the love

For the day that I was born

And thank you for the people

In my life

And my home

Cotton

2011-02-20T01:26:00.006+05:30

Today I dreamed of a plain white translucent cotton kurta. I was wearing it and walking breezily down the roads of a city in the sweltering heat, unencumbered by boots, stockings, sweaters and jackets. I was free and light. The sun's rays scorched my skin and I could hear my mother's voice asking me to wear sun screen. I could also see her face, knowing that I'd not do it and come back completely burnt. I had chatai chapals, and cargo pants under the kurta. My hair is tied up and I have a scarf around my face because of all the pollution when I drive. My bike. I can feel the power beneath me when I sit on my bike and she glides through the city. Everyone honks and silence is not an option. I'll miss the silence of my room in Oxford. It's been a new find for me, silence. I had never experienced that before coming to Oxford. Sometimes I just sit still in my room and everything is still and quiet. But when I go home there will always be noise. But my white kurta and the fact that I can wear it will overpower the noise and make everything worthwhile.

In the head

2011-02-19T15:13:00.003+05:30

My head is heavy with mucus

my shoulders heave at the weight

my forehead has caused my nose

to throw bacteria around the place

Everything is slower

and I go back to bed

because my three pound pink brain

is compressed

by the mucus in my head.

Oops.

2011-02-15T22:31:00.003+05:30

Post Valentine's day excitement is sitting in your friend's room, your head full of mucus and self-pity, having missed your train and had to buy new tickets. I clutch onto my peasant societies' readings. They put me to sleep, which makes me feel better. Then I read some more and sleep again. It's a nice circle. The friend I stay with is not much of a caffeine addict. Thus I have this teeny little water glass to drink tea in. It's very meditative, in a Karate Kid kind of way. Fill cup. Put in bag. Drink tea in 3 sips. Refill cup... Wax on, wax off, wax on wax off...

I can smell the orange zest in the tea. I can't be very ill. Which makes me reconsider my situation. It's not that bad actually. I'll have an extra day with my friend and Paris (which is apparently an entity in itself), my illness will assure me even more love and nourishment from the owner of the cup, I have also had a few hours of self-pity and extra sleep, and hopefully will get some more readings done. Not bad at all.

True love

2011-02-14T16:09:00.001+05:30

True love is asking your boy to do a grammar check on your articles before you submit them, on Valentine's Day.

Take that Hallmark.

A day in Paris

2011-02-14T01:11:00.004+05:30

She drew the curtains and it was Paris, outside waiting for us. The sun hid behind clouds shyly and a cold wind hit us as we walked through Champs Elysees. The city was ours, crepes, coffee and all. Food. I associate Paris with food more than anything else. It may be a function of whom I come to visit. She makes me have different cuisines. Last night, Ethiopian. It's like a mix of north and south Indian food. The bread is an over-fermented rice base or dosa and simple single vegetable dishes. It was her birthday and I would have eaten anything she asked me to. Place de la Contrescarpe had us for coffee. She's in the kitchen now. I've made daal and covered her kitchen with the scent of chillies and the colour of saffron. She is cutting her Lebanese aubergine dish. It was cooked very calmly in an oven unlike my daal which refused to be placed within the confines of a machine. It was cooked without a cover and required much whisking. I can hear the tinkling of dishes. We bought cake and baguette from the bakery nearby. It turned out to be a fruitcake and not a chocolate one as I had imagined it would be. It was still delicious. Very eggy as she pointed out. And moist. Glazed in chocolate and orange. She gave some to her new roommate. They don't know each other much. Maybe the cake will lead to a stronger relationship. Cakes tend to strengthen relationships. It's the egg or the egg-substitute that binds the eaters together. We are happy now. It's been a long day of shopping. She is talking from afar. She doesn't know I am writing about her as she cuts the aubergine and places it on a plate she chose for me. It's her birthday today. She's 25. I will be that in an auspicious 13 days. She won't be with me then. Work and growing up means you can only spend some time together. She'll be in office, I know she'll eat something special that day. And think of me.

Cause she just keeps running away

2011-02-12T13:00:00.003+05:30

Am running away again. This weekend I go to Paris. I spend a birthday and valentine’s day with a beautiful girl. We’ll eat Ethiopian food tonight. I’ll wear something pretty with large dangling earrings because this girl epitomises large chunky jewellery. Though Paris has taken away her wild colours and drawn her to blacks, beiges and creams I know that she’ll come back to her colours one day. She’ll wear her pinks with her oranges and carry them off with aplomb. We’ll spend the night discussing our future, families, people and the world at large. I’ll make her eat more sugar than she can handle and she’ll cook traditional Maharashtrian food for me. We’ll both get a little home sick and laugh when we make rude jokes. We’ll be like dirty old women, just young. We’ll be perfect. It will be perfect. This weekend I am going to Paris. Am running away again.

Declaration of love

2011-02-10T13:12:00.001+05:30

Hey look ma, we've moved on beyond haggis. Ain't that awesome?

Monsoons

2011-02-10T12:18:00.002+05:30

Last night, before I fell asleep wrapped up in a profusion of blankets and after I did my 5th sock check for the night, I suddenly thought of the monsoons. I thought of waking up to the sound of rain. The scent of a newly cleaned city. I thought of the connection my mother and I have to the rains. How we are individually so irritable and annoyed until that first rain falls and as the skies turn into a smudged water colour painting our souls and bodies go through an unspoken catharsis and our irritation melts away. All we feel then is peace and calm. In my cold little room, where monsoon is but a brand name I thought of a place where it is a season without which the country would not survive. And then I fell asleep.

Burns Night

2011-01-27T17:08:00.002+05:30

Last night we had

haggis and meat

drink and dancing

and encrusted feats:

oxford students

danced in a hall

managing to keep

the rhythm,

somewhat.

untitled.

2011-01-25T11:57:00.001+05:30

The heart is only alone

when it wants to be.

migration

2011-01-23T03:18:00.003+05:30

Applied for a French visa yesterday. Went to the office with all my documents: the form, passport, letters from my school, letters from my bank, insurance, residency permit, old visas, photographs and copies of all of this. I wait in a line outside in cold cold London, because they are running late. I am at the door. I can almost feel the warmth of the room. My toes are in a twilight of experiences. The cold makes my feet numb but the warmth of the room creates these incredible pulses of excruciating pain. I can’t wait for the man with the name tag and muscles to flick his first two fingers towards himself. That will indicate permission to enter the room. This position between the warmth and the cold is unbearable. I break away room the warmth. I refuse to be tantalised by it. I breathe in the cold air, thankful for the honesty of its being.

Finally the man flicks his fingers and I am inside the clinically white room with my documents. A man is shouted at. Another man has to cancel his ticket. They feel angry and vulnerable. I can feel their helplessness but cannot help them. Empathy. Pure empathy without the power to change their lives. It is a strange feeling. They are big men. Strong and aged. Young girls in small shorts cannot tell them what to do with their lives. Their body language becomes more aggressive. My empathy reduces. The man who flicks his fingers interrupts one of the conversations and draws boundaries around the shouting man with his arms. Both the men are rigid and tense. They scream. The girl looks like she wants to help but can’t. I empathise with both parties. My number is called and I tear away. Do I want my passport shipped to me in Oxford or will I collect it in London? Yes I did draw out enough money. I ask an inordinate amount of question to the cashier. She is tired. I must be the 100^th person doing this to her today. I know this but I am scared of making mistakes ahead and being asked to come back to London. She knows this but is tired of people asking questions she is not supposed to deal with. I am sent to the man who will look at my papers. He is thin and has the same pale blue eyes the last French visa officer had in 2009. The last visa officer was old though and yelled at me when I said I had single room bookings in Paris for Christmas and New Years in 2009. He yelled and at me and refused to believe I would be alone. I remember telling myself that it is none of his business and these are not questions he has the authority to ask me. The rationalisation doesn’t help me feel less dirty. I see the same steel blue eyes and am scared. But this one smiles and gently goes through my documents. I fill in more forms and he quietly asks me to correct some mistakes in the form. I breathe. His brow creases.

“Your insurance policy doesn’t cover repatriation”.

“What?”

He looks sheepish and realises he is accusing me of needing deportation. I am not angry with him. He is just doing his job. His company has a scan of my retina and my thumb prints. Like a convict, all my fingers were recorded in case I were to flee or make trouble. Random countries have access to data about me that my own country does not. That my closest friends and family don’t. But more than my retina and my thumb prints, my money and my records they also need for me to give them insurance that I will pay for my repatriation. I am supposed to be a considerate potential felon. I laugh. It all just seems too ridiculous. He laughs too. We look uneasily at the papers. He says I could try. I say I will. He submits my documents. I leave the white lights, the papers, the shouting people and the fear and power of the room.

I am a migrant, I realised yesterday.

Laughter the best medicine?

2011-01-18T16:07:00.002+05:30

Went for a talk by Dambisa Moyo on the ill effects of aid, with specific reference to Africa. It was an interesting talk and prompted my friends, who are more involved in these issues, to discuss the issues further and describe how simplistic and unrealistic her take on the situation is. If not directly through her, the discussion later helped me understand more about this continent that I know so little of.

This talk also introduced me to one of the most openly racist comments I have heard in Oxford. A member of the audience asked Dr. Moyo if she thought that Africans were incapable of bringing themselves out of poverty and dependence. The hall started laughing at how wildly racist and ridiculous a question that was, completely ignoring the social, political and economical reasons for a condition and pegging the cause as race. And I laughed too, the people on the stage laughed but inside I don't know if laughing was the solution. Should we have been solemn? Should we have been shocked? Should we have been quiet for a few minutes to understand the gravity of such a remark in apparently one of the finest institutions? By laughing did we take the easy way out and try to fend off any other emotion and reaction that might have been more appropriate? I don't know, am still grappling with that one.

Definition.

2011-01-17T19:04:00.008+05:30

Adult: What are you, Tia?

Tia: I am a verb.

love

2011-01-15T17:45:00.005+05:30

I have two mango trees in my garden

their branches are intertwined

like old friends and lovers

apart, but side by side.

Picture perfect

2011-01-13T03:14:00.002+05:30

Wise words my friends, wise words.

Dolling up.

2011-01-12T01:59:00.004+05:30

So I may have had a bath and put on a nice shawl (goes beautifully with my tracks and house tee),with matching earrings and nail polish on my feet but I have a thesis to write and by Thor*, I will look pretty for my thesis.

*interesting conversation on Nordic Gods with Icelandic housemate. Will be discussed later.

Time heals

2011-01-11T20:55:00.001+05:30

Union Jack, Forest of Dean.

Never thought I’d put up an English flag. After over 60 years of independence, it is just a flag flying for me and not a sign of colonisation. Time heals.

Future perfect

2011-01-11T18:29:00.003+05:30

Today my friend is leaving for London to figure out her future. She will meet people and maybe one component of her future will be decided. She looks beautiful, just like today. Today looks beautiful, sunny warm yet crisp. As I was coming back to Oxford yesterday from a weekend in the woods I felt so strong and happy to see my sleepy town. To see all the places I know, shining under the rare January sun. It struck me that in June I will no longer be a student, not an enrolled one at least. My life pattern will change. My location will change and again I have no idea where I will be. And this doesn’t seem scary. Two years ago, this seemed scary. My gap-cum-work-experience year had extended into another gap-cum-work-experience year with no sign of stopping. I wanted to be educated again. I wanted to go to Oxford, to one of the oldest universities in the world, to a programme that seemed to be just the right mix of subjects, to get out of where I was, to go somewhere new, to be a new person. Two years later, I have some of the same causes of those old feelings. Oxford seems overwhelmingly rigid and structured, seems homogeneous and xenophobic, seems alien and impenetrable. But the difference is that I don’t want to change Oxford. I am enjoying it for what it is. It has more structure than my family would dream of imposing on me and experiencing it is like watching a strange 3D interactive movie. Through this movie, I have learnt so much about myself and my subjects and I am happy here. I also know that had I not come here, I would have done something else and it would have been a strange learning experience as well. So on this beautiful sunny January day, with my future completely unknown I feel happy and light. I feel full of potential and omnipotent. I feel for my beautiful friend in London and after a few years of not doing this as I used to – I just feel.

dream ride

2011-01-11T03:54:00.001+05:30

read the title.

Answers

2011-01-05T06:29:00.003+05:30

Sometimes you have those moments when you need information and no matter how much you work or whom you contact you can't get it and it won't move and all those questions lie hanging above your head and you don't know where to go or how to breathe or what to do and you just start going back to what you have, reading those lines you know over and over and over in the hope that the truth or the knowledge you crave will lie there, that maybe you missed it, that maybe you slacked off or couldn't remember what you had written or known before but it's not there and you hate to do it but you push away those papers and stop pushing for that answer.

Then you read something else and there it is. The answer you were looking for. Quietly lying where you hadn't looked. It smiles at you benevolently, it has been waiting for you. Your eyes well up and you breathe slowly and read the answer. You read it slowly, cherishing its existence, cherishing its honesty and cherishing the moment.

into the night

2011-01-02T18:06:00.001+05:30

So it was the new year and we walked in the dark. Oxford was quiet and so were we…most of the time.

Le Chat aka Billu Rani

2011-01-02T03:44:00.001+05:30

So I met a cat today and it was magical. Happy new year!

Florence and the machine trying on Beyonce’s Halo

2010-12-31T19:16:00.002+05:30

Florence and the machine trying on Beyonce’s Halo.

Very violent and I like the violence in her voice. The sugary feel of the original song completely dissolves in this. But it’s not a shock. The sugar dissolves slowly. She starts like Beyonce and slowly the howls and stretched voice seep in till the song moves completely away and has it’s own identity.

I love that the orchestra, the framework of the song, is exactly like Beyonce’s. It reaffirms my belief that people can work with the same system, the same framework and get colossally different outcomes. Fun. Almost new year people, I think that’s a nice thought to end on. That we all live in frameworks and systems, how we use our own voice and abilities will decide how our life songs will sound.

Tesis

2010-12-29T08:12:00.002+05:30

It's 2:17

her clock tics

her tongue licks

off chocolate.

She types.

She creates?

Hopefully.

The traveller

2010-12-28T20:04:00.001+05:30

Because I miss home.

Untitled.

2010-12-26T22:07:00.000+05:30

All that Glitters

CCTV

2010-12-26T22:01:00.004+05:30

You are being watched.

Boxed out.

2010-12-26T21:59:00.001+05:30

Went for my first Boxing Day Sale. This encapsulated my thoughts about consumption.

Realisations

2010-12-26T04:05:00.001+05:30

So I was writing this thesis and feeling hungry and thinking of taking a break when she knocked on the door and said, “This is for you.”

Yeah, I believe in a higher power. I also believe in room service

Grateful.

2010-12-24T03:27:00.002+05:30

A year back tomorrow, I spent Christmas eve at San Germain de Pres. It was my first night in Paris, with one old beautiful friend and one new beautiful friend. The three of us just made it to the service where we prayed quietly. One Muslim, one Hindu and one Zoroastrian prayed in the oldest Church in Paris. After the service we walked around the church in silence, I couldn’t bring myself to take out my camera. A machine in this beautiful moment of peace and love seemed strange. Outside we talked to a priest over hot chocolate and biscuits.

Today, a roommate’s family has come over from Germany to spend Christmas with her. So today, a night before Christmas eve my house is filled with laughter and parents and siblings and I can’t think of my house being any more blessed than by having a family inside it. Downstairs they are joking and laughing in a language I do not understand. Her mother came up to my room and gave me a Christmas present and told be to follow Bobby McFerrin and not worry and be happy. And maybe this blogpost has too many ands, but I want them here, they show continuity and I feel that there has been a lot of continuity in this last year. I have met so many beautiful people, have received much love and am very grateful all these people and places that I have been associated with in the last year. So this is a blog post to commemorate this one year and these people. And Merry Christmas everyone.

India, Love and the Beatles

2010-12-18T21:12:00.007+05:30

India India, John Lennon sings. Pleading India to use her mysticism and ancient knowledge to answer his questions but he knows that he already has the answers. Lennon sits at India's feet and by her rivers and thinks of the girl he left behind in England.

A few decades later, in Oxford, I am an inverse Lennon. Not only am I not a dead male musical legend, but here by the Thames I attempt to seek knowledge and answer the questions in my life while I think of the boy I left behind. Lennon says he has to follow his heart wherever it takes him. It sounds like a good way to go about things. Maybe I shouldn't be listening to the advice of a pot-smoking pop-star, but what the heck let's try it out!

Beatles...crawling home in memory

2010-12-18T19:28:00.002+05:30

It’s snowed all morning and I sit under our Christmas tree, while the house sits in three inches of snow. Half the country is overwhelmed by these three inches and is grounded. A random conversation with my sister, thousands of kilometres away in India, brings me to the Beetles and as I sit in my warm house, under my Christmas tree, in the midst of snow, with few vehicles plying and the airports shut, and water all around this island that seems so far away from all that is real and home, I play this song. I play a song that I associated with England in my childhood and hope that all the snow and water and land and air and people and money that lie between me and home can be overcome by music and memories.

Pancake thesis?

2010-12-18T06:21:00.000+05:30

3 people ate almost 30 pancakes. Well needed carbs for midnight thesis crunching sessions. We are the masked academics, hidden behind a cloud of uncertainty and constrained by time. We fight Evil time to create sentences, all the while untangling words that are determined to coagulate into long, almost Germanic, phrases and desperately trying to find people who have said what we want to say so that we can say what we want to say in our theses. Yessireee, this is how the MPhil babies rollllll….

Grand Tea?

2010-12-16T01:37:00.001+05:30

Had my first High Tea…well Cream Tea experience. A nice graded caste system of teas were offered to me at the Grand Cafe today. Cream tea, High Tea and the Grand High Tea, in ascending order, were my options and I chose the first. The menu consisted of scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam and I chose Lapsang Souchon as my tea option. My cultural acclimatisation process started with saying, ’What’s burning?’, when my tea arrived. A patient friend reminded me that I had asked for Lapsang tea. Sillly lil me had forgotten the ‘smoky’ part of the description on the card. Ahh, cultural acclimatisation such a precious process. The verdict? So-so. Apparently the Rose does a better high tea and that will be next on my agenda. That being said, clotted cream and scones, hot tea and beautiful people are a great combination on a cold, dark Oxonian day.

The Grand Cafe and their cups proudly proclaim that this is the first coffee shop in England; though Queen’s Lane Coffee House opposite them claims that QLCH is the first in Europe. I realise that the UK is not a part of the EU, but this pushes things a wee bit.

Christmas in Narnia

2010-12-16T01:33:00.003+05:30

Went to the Kilns yesterday, C.S Lewis’s house for a Christmas/Narnia party. We had mulled wine, dressed up as characters from the Chronicles of Narnia and discussed Lewis’s sex life while admiring his beautiful and strange house. I loved the transistor that was programmed according to city rather than a numerical wave length. We saw the table where the book was written, and all looked inside the wooden closets hoping to find some magic that would transport us away from reality. When that failed we drank more mulled wine and snacked on chocolate and fudges. A good night I’d say.

Social Sciences and Love

2010-12-14T22:59:00.002+05:30

Sitting in the Social Sciences Library Cafe, Norah plays in my ears, my friend and I type rhythmically and manically. The keyboards echo across the café. The sounds of coffee brewing, people talking and humming vending machines barely mask them. Orange peals and half-eaten carrots, a hollow chocolate wrapper that once held cocoa lie desolate. Sacrificed for the sorceresses at the table to continue typing.

Our neighbours say something about environmental economics. I tune out and return to the screen. One of the women had, a few moments ago, a shy smile as she read a handmade book. Her face is now creased and she leans towards her friend as they discuss topics heavier and seriouser than those that lay in the handmade book. These topics do not bring light and peace to her face as the book had a few minutes ago. I return to my own reflection in the computer. I look as creased as she. I begin to wonder about what I should be focusing on in life as Norah’s smoky voice lifts me away from the SSL and places me in a playful sea of instruments and sounds.

The song stops. I open my eyes and see my document ahead of me. Today I chose, like the woman who leans forward and talks to her friend about environmental policy, to focus on my work. The rhythm of my keyboard accompanies me and my friend and the flow of ideas accompanies our neighbour and we all dance with academia for an evening.

Can you feel the heat? No, it's cause British Gas forgot us!

2010-12-14T08:26:00.002+05:30

Finally after five days of living without heating British Gas took pity on the dying souls in the building and repaired our boiler. We cheered Richard, of British Gas, as he repaired our boiler and blessed him with longevity and happiness when he told us that we would have hot water and functioning radiators! It was strange to see your breathe inside your house and stranger still to be colder inside your house than outside. And through all this, only my bucket gave me a few moments of warmth.

This year I had promised myself that I would not torture myself with fickle showers that played with temperature and velocity. No indeed, I would bathe with a bucket with constant temperatures and control the velocity with my mug. I did not know that during the time that British Gas abandoned us (you did BG, you know you did!) it would also be the only way I could bathe in this house. After heating a few pots of water on the stove, I would fill my trusty translucent bucket and proceed to the bathroom, and be warm for a precious few minutes before returning to the cold and doom of the rest of this house. Sigh, subcontinental bathing habits, you gotta love them.

morning melodrama

2010-12-08T16:21:00.002+05:30

Why are my mental faculties attached to hygiene? I can't talk or incorporate much information before I have brushed my teeth, bathed and cleaned my room. My mother will laugh at the third part of the sentence but it it's true ma, it's true. Right now, I am attempting to write having not done any of the above and really my head feels stuffy and closed. I read things on my computer but they seem to be reaching a substandard part of my brain. I have heard that this is also known as fatigue and may not be related to my current hygiene standards. I have also heard that this is known as post grad life. How beautifully melodramatic.

In six months I won't be a post grad student anymore, better milk it while I can.

Change of Space: Research results

2010-12-08T01:32:00.004+05:30

See that? That's a bona fide essay that I like, that was researched in a loud noisy cafe, with four high pitched Californian girls laughing behind, a man attempting to steal a wallet a few tables away, my good Samaritan friend attempting to foil the theft, with a strange man who blocked my attempts to go to the loo with chair...yes in the face of all these external problems we studied and it was successful.

The theory it is proven.

Change of space

2010-12-05T18:16:00.002+05:30

Am at a cafe, studying with my friend. This is my first serious attempt at not studying 1. In my hall huddled under layers of blankets; 2. On the floor of my room, with all my papers stacked around me making me feel important and intellectual; 3. Any library, falling asleep.

Yesterday I heard that a change of space improves productivity, you will soon know how valid this statement is....

a moment, a state of being

2010-12-01T08:15:00.002+05:30

2:45 am.

The clock ticks.

chocolate

books

warm friends

a sweater

yellow light

poinsettias

wine glasses

and half drunk martinis.

Outside,

people smoke.

Christmas and term end

are around the corner

Home

2010-11-30T15:01:00.002+05:30

It snows outside,

and I think of

a mango tree.

Future?

2010-11-29T11:37:00.001+05:30

Home?Away? Home? Away? Home? Away?

leaving

2010-11-29T11:35:00.003+05:30

"Persis," she laughed, "you are always by my side." She tugged at her peach-coloured purse and walked away....

Musical musings

2010-11-24T17:30:00.003+05:30

When I was growing up there was a song that all the neighbourhood boys sang called ‘Tu Cheez badi hai mast mast’. Having not seen the visuals of the song, I assumed that it was a song about how delicious cheese was and sang it too. My mother, aghast by her daughter’s vocal performance, asked me to stop. This confused me. Why couldn’t I sing about cheese? Cheese is tasty. One must give it its due. She said that it was a derogatory objectification of women. ‘The man is calling her a tasty thing, Tia. Would you like to be a tasty thing?’ she asked me gently. I gasped. Gender studies 101 people. The boys were singing about women? Would I want to be a thing? No. No. That was disgusting. The song dropped, and I became more conscience about lyrics…or so I thought.

He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet
She Ran Underneath The Table
He Could See She Was Unable
So She Ran Into The Bedroom
She Was Struck Down, It Was Her Doom
Annie Are You OK?

Recognise this? Well I couldn’t. It’s from Smooth Criminal, a song I have heard for over twenty years and never identified as a violent song. All I could remember was the jukebox, the anti-gravity moves and the tune. The words whoosh by me like a flurry of sounds, indiscernible and unimportant while the beat, the rhythm, the voice, the visuals, the energy have been embedded in my soul. But the song means so much more right now. The violence is overwhelming and my body feels weak when I hear Michael asks, ‘Annie are you ok are you ok, are you ok Annie?’.

The inability to acknowledge words can be traced to a few years back. In 2007, a romantic song was released called Tere Bina Besuwadi which means ‘life is tasteless without you’. In one of my emotion-driven moments, I waxed eloquently about the beauty of this line. I was then asked to listen to the whole chorus and not just notice the one line. Sure enough, after the besuwadi there was a pause and a ‘ratiya’ came after it. Thus, the song really says, ‘my nights are tasteless without you’. Sadness and woe, I was hoping for a more twenty-four hour love story.

In the category of visual misinterpretation however, nothing can come as close to my inability to pick up gross sexual content as the Govinda-Karishma song Khatwa. It was only when I saw it a few years back that I picked up on the near pornographic dry-humping. As a child, the song was just a few people moving ungracefully. As an adult, I actively remember it when I think of awkward sexual songs.

What does this say? Am I not very observant or critical? When it comes to analysing policies, political motives, movies and advertisements I am like a hawk waiting for movement, waiting to critically consume the body of work. But music gets some room for movement and ambiguity. The importance of the sounds, the rhythm, the beat and possibly the emotions they evoke (love, happiness, sadness, boredom) makes me forgiving of other parts of the songs. Possibly, I also don’t listen to lyrics because they can take away from the song. I love old Geeta Dutt songs, but the lyrics are so masochistic. They have a sense of overwhelming powerlessness and I don’t identify with them. Take Ajeeb Dastaan for instance. Really, must you be passive aggressive as you wish the man you love well in his new love life? Must you? It’s still a pretty song, but the anger is distressing. But the beauty of some songs, like Iktara and Bawra Mann lie in the lyrics as they speak of confusion and peace in and necessity of confusion.

So where does this leave me? Should I continue in this forgiving manner or confront the musical lover in me and demand that I take cognisance of the complete package including words, sounds and visuals? Something inside me says that music will flow in and out and I should not confine or define every sound I experience. That which needs to stay with me will do so. Where I get things very wrong my mother can give me talks on image, identity and equality or they can pass through me like weary travelers who merely move to their next destination.

Tea

2010-11-24T14:19:00.003+05:30

Hot tea to warm my body and soul, shared through vessels of bone china and experience. Pasts, futures and the present, gently unwrapped and shared. The present, a present over shadowing the other states of being. Fears discussed without the bitter remnants of filter coffee, cold and old. The tea revitalises and energises. Tea of friendship and leaves, together form strong foundations of love, sharing and reciprocity.

Tia went for a ball 1

2010-11-22T19:09:00.005+05:30

Oxford spent a night South Asia style! The Diwali Ball had people drowning in a sea of saris, lassi, fireworks and enough bollywood gaane to dance the night away! Of the acts, Signature stole the show and the Surd component of the Michael Jackson-Sikh pair wore his way into our hearts with effortless smiles and splits. My Development Studies crowd did their interdisciplinary, international, interreligious jig as well. And I lost myself in the music. When my feet hurt and my stomach ached, and I was dying of thirst, I just spun across the room and almost fell down like a happy five-year-old. But the Diwali Ball was really the night of the Surds. Not just the smiling, splitting one but the ones who dominated the dance floor till the wee hours of the morning! What can I say except, chak de phatte!

Is Tony Blair Dead?

2010-11-18T13:45:00.000+05:30

This was a bona-fide, virtually existent question on answers.com. Their answer was,

Tony Blair - who used to be UK Prime Miniter is very much alive. He is a special peace envoy for the middle east, particularly Isreal. He also a holds directorship with a major merchant bank and travels the world giving lectures to various groups.

What does Mr. Blair lecture about I wonder? Reminds me of the Pervez Musharraf talk I went to in Oxford last year. His speech was highly flawed, and even had the names of tribes interchanged with their locations in Afghanistan. But beyond the content of his speech, it was his presence that disturbed me. There is something particularly pitiful about a powerless ex-ruler. They look like spoilt children who have, for the first time, been told to stand in the corner. This whole concept of accountability seems so alien and unjust to them but yet they can do nothing but stand in the corner. This consultant-lecturer corner is where the likes of Blair and Mush find themselves; and they make best use of it. Beyond the pity I feel for the spoilt babies; the concept of them interpreting history, economics and governance to students just freaks me out.

Frost: Post-Foggism

2010-11-16T14:17:00.003+05:30

After the fog comes the frost. This first frost of my academic year.

Tia

safari

Tia's paper planes

unsettled

Truth

sure

english

while listening to what the water gave us

underarm cleavage

Love and lungs.

The return...in progress and perfect

on balance

change

Port Meadows

Techno emotions

To the strong women

On Love

Goodbyes

sieves and other social skills

Re-turning

A. Roy

Wo(l)e is me

political fission

You are leaving the English Sector

out of towners

Artists of lines

thinking

La buena educación

Karen Harrison

Critical thinking: I

Easter egg!

Oxford. drizzles return.

the weaver

Noble Savages

Good-luu-k

Dancing ways

Images Oxford

Language and other feminist arguments

astrology

wisdom from her

blogging, the root cause.

JargonNut

Destiny

Jargonaut. Fait accompli.

chai break

3six5 Tia

young pain

the song plays on

Tia turns 25

Birthday

Cotton

In the head

Oops.

True love

A day in Paris

Cause she just keeps running away

Declaration of love

Monsoons

Burns Night

untitled.

migration

Laughter the best medicine?

Definition.

love

Picture perfect

Menu

Dolling up.

Time heals

Future perfect

dream ride

Answers

into the night

Le Chat aka Billu Rani

Florence and the machine trying on Beyonce’s Halo

Tesis

The traveller

Untitled.

CCTV

Boxed out.

Realisations