What are words worth?

if nothing else, poetry captures the moment and stretches it in a way that can be held, felt and wound around oneself... recollections from a morning walk: Nothingness (22-12-06) The bird outlines a black shadow on a still colourless cloudless blue sky; A wing flutters ever so slightly as it swims across my upward view. The tree stump waits in patience, hope and a certain sense of fatalism (or fatality?) for a new twig to burst into leaf. There's a quiet in the crisp crunch of footfall on gravel. Heads nod hands rise in a hello; Morning walkers polite alone breathing in and out and feet move on another mile.

I read the other day about a rally organised in New Delhi to protest female foeticide and call attention to the deteriorating male:female ratio, particularly in the states of northern India. Just reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago...in fact, much before I became a mother, perhaps in response to a similar discussion in the eighties, perhaps recalled from 'the depths of neo-natal' memory...? But I must say that memory and imagination are partners in a writer's mind, and empathy often makes curious turns into the space usually occupied by experience, and in doing so, touches memory with a brush that recalls feelings unfelt! A daughter is born 17-3-86 Dredged up From the depths of neo-natal experience A memory stirs. While head and hands groped for life In the womb-darkness Of pre-birth, Tiny feet found Their first breath In the bright hospital air. A little body Inched out into The adult world, defined By adult-set hopes. Before even, The baby eyes saw Their firs

It seems like I've been talking a lot about the past, about people and times passing. Perhaps that's the way it is when you get to a certain age. There's more to talk about what one has done and seen rather than get breathless about plans for the future! But this year has been more about loss than any year before. Since the beginning of the year, I have lost three people I have been associated with closely, people who have been engaged in my life at different points and have made differently-shaped dents in my personality. One was a fellow student who later turned into a colleague, an intense young man who became an even more intense adult, whose intensity lingers in his poetry and his sharp visual sketches, some of which surface, unexpectedly, on the Internet when one is browsing late at night looking for traces of a past that seemingly has vanished but has found a nook in some strange corner of this realm called cyberspace. The next to go was a gentle presence who just ba

I sometimes wonder at our capacity to handle such a wide variety of interactions, each with a separate set of parameters, expectations, obligations and rewards (or otherwise). In each we are a different person, or show a different side of ourselves. Inside, we may feel quite complete, but those who watch us across contexts often find that we turn unrecognizable as we move from one to the other. We are able to move across ages—we are children to some, parents to others, lovers with an infinite range of visages and friends with an even greater range of faces, and all the shades of no-name relationships in between. So many people within each person. Do any of us have a true measure of ourselves as people? While we may outwardly marvel at how little we know of others, and how they constantly show us different sides of their selves, we usually explain it away by attributing it to a latent schizophrenia in the other—and only half jokingly! The person most of us know the least, because we ob

Here's something that came to me by way of a text message from a friend-- Those ‘night outs’, those ‘midnight coffees’, those ‘birthday bumps’, those ‘old torn jeans’, those ‘late night walks’, those ‘long chats’, those ‘pinches ‘n slaps’, those ‘crushes on pals’, those ‘getting kicked out of classes’, those ‘struggle for marks’, those ‘writing on desks’, those ‘fights with teachers’, those ‘tears for love’, those ‘fake project reports’. Just everything that’s in all of us that’s called school life. I call it Heaven. (from Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao, aka Buchamma, August 1, 2006) Got me thinking about that special space within us called childhood...or as it may be, not so special place, for some. I was myself relatively untouched by major trauma in school, but again, school does mark us in certain ways, for good or bad. For those of us who went to convent schools, there was the dark fascination with the concept of SIN and eternal damnation, and many of us lived in fear that we would ne

My friend Gina (and roommate from another age, another era) called Wednesday the 'hump' day of the week...the day that was right in the middle, the day when you were just over the weekend euphoria and not quite into the anticipatory haze of the approaching friday. The day when, perhaps, it hit you that you were already into the middle of the week and your "to do" list was not even halfway checked! I think Wednesday could just as easily be designated 'slump' day...if you're the kind who comes back to work on Monday feeling all energized and motivated after a refreshing weekend ("What kind of strange species feels energetic on Monday?" I hear you mumble, through your own mid-week mind-haze. Monday, morning, you walk into your work space, and you look at all the bright little post-it notes on your desk top and in various strategic locations around your desk (if you're lucky enough to have one that doesn't get swept off every morning but an o

There's something about the monsoon that triggers memories. As i was driving home yesterday trying to avoid the puddles on the road in case they were cover-ups for deep potholes, I passed by several carts of tender corn, makka buttas , and as the aroma of charcoal and slightly burning corn kernels followed me, i remembered.... Mahrookh and i used to walk along Parade Grounds on rainy afternoons, with fifty-paise coins given by indulgent mothers, fifty paise to buy whatever we wanted with. And what could fifty paise buy, in the mid 1970s? well, a lot, really. anything from ten sticks of vanilla ice cream to two 'rainbow' ice lollies to a few guavas sliced and peppered with chilli powder and salt, and, in season, tender light yellow buttas, the blonde strands of their fibrous coats still stuck to the cobs. "Kanvla wala dena," Mahrookh would insist. Until then, I had assumed that the darker the gold, the bigger the cob, the better the butta. But no, it was the lighte

Listen to the falling rain, listen to it fall... For those of us who grew up in the seventies, this song by the visually impaired singer Jose Feliciano may bring back many memories of monsoons past. Having just returned from rain-lashed Bhubaneswar, and inundated by reports of a rain-battered Mumbai, the sound of the rain brings a mixed bag of memories. A good friend said that the sound of the rain is the same, no matter where you are, so it's hard to forget. But I wonder. The rain has a different rhythm at different times of year, when it falls on different surfaces, and when it curtains different landscapes. The rain on a beach in Goa is both poetic and devastating, coconut palms bending submissively to the force of the lashing sheets of water. The rain that washes the PVC hoardings that otherwise beam seductively at distracted drivers on the main roads of Hyderabad is a harsh reminder of the transcience of urban desire. And the rain on the slushy, potholed roads of Chennai's

Another morning, another day...but I am yet to feel comfortable with this new space. Writing into oblivion is a strange feeling. Your words go out there, and someone, somewhere, whose only link to you is a few strokes on a keyboard, reads what you write--maybe--or comes upon it by an accidental detour on the streets of cyberspace. And you create a sense of who you are through your words. So, if you've actually stayed this far on this page, here's something to think about... this is from my own archives, a quarter of a century old (imagine, before this space came into public use!). Maya 30-3-81 My mirror forms an image in my mind I draw myself in colours I want to see. I am a figment of your imagination, as you are too, of mine.

I guess I have arrived...in today's terms. I now have my own few square feet on that strange space called the Web. And what will I say? Will what I say make sense--to myself, to others, both known and unknown? Perhaps a good way to begin is to talk about what's uppermost on my mind. Being a wordsmith who takes on different avatars--biomedical editor, teacher, writer of features and fiction, and of course, that something that is closest to my heart--poetry (I can see some of you cringe--"oh, no, not another of that sort!")--it seems particularly fitting to subject my readers to my most recent exploration of emotion in verse. Caregiving for people of various ages is a challenge, and it's important to remember some basic human truths--which is what this expresses. For my grandmother and yours… In the half-light of The naked light bulb Shaded only by The clouds in your eyes And the tears in mine, We float Through times past and present Wondering where our selves are l