What are words worth?

"They sell fish and buy cars," said my friend and host, most matter-of-factly, as we watched a shiny white sedan draw up by the dusty track outside the house. She was referring to the rapid replacement, over the past decade, of lush paddy fields by aquaculture ponds that brought quick riches for a large number of entrepreneurs in the region. Of course, there are also several stories of those quick bucks making an equally quick exit, but there's no denying that West Godavari is one of the most prosperous areas in the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh. But I wasn't really here to engage in an economic analysis of the district. I was, in fact, here to disengage from analysis and simply take that much needed break from a non-stop series of deadlines. It was the first step in taking my own advice seriously (ref: my previous post). So, here are a few moments from that pause in my city-fied routine. I find myself, an unlikely pilgrim at the Ramana Kendram in Jinnuru ...

It's two weeks into the year and it already feels old. This year crept in on slow legs, carrying on its prematurely aging back the burden of false promises and stillborn ideas, dressed in a new veil of shiny hope. From time to time this covering slips off to show us that underneath, there is little that is new. It is just the inexorable passage of time. Yet we accept the fiction. We choose to be intoxicated by the effervescence of the market and charmed by the seductive ringing of bells of various kinds. We wake up on a day marked as the beginning of a new calendar and believe that we are changed. That the world is changed. Yes, I received my share of phone calls, emails and text messages. I stayed up till past midnight and colluded in a round of hugs and handshakes. I posted a post on Facebook and responded to others' posts as well. I willingly contributed to the conspiracy of expectation and excitement. After all, ritual is an important part of our lives, and the ritua...

Sometimes, one is assailed by a hopelessness, a frustration born out of the fact that one cannot do anything about the way one feels. You open the newspaper and are bombarded by a dozen stories that speak to the horrible things that go on in this world. Anger, disgust, sadness...and despair. Of course, there are also the many stories of hope and survival that cause one to smile. So we retreat from the assault of the news into a space that is our own, cushion ourselves in conversations about this and that, surround ourselves by the tedium of everyday decision making. Which outfit to wear? What to make for breakfast? Should I do the groceries today or tomorrow? And what about that meeting I need to prepare for? Should I call the electrician to come fix the stairwell light that's been out for weeks? In the middle of all this, when (and if) we allow the consciousness of the world to intrude, we run the risk of being blanketed again by that old feeling of " what can I do about i...

This morning I spent a full fifteen minutes changing one cushion cover. Here I was, full of housekeeping energy, determined to finish all those boring things one just has to do to keep a house looking somewhat in order (now, I do realise that 'order' is a loaded work, what is perfectly acceptable to one is reason for high tension for another). The first sign that things were not going to go quite in the manner planned was when I found I needed to sit down to get that cover on the cushion. It wasn't one of those easy slip-on-and-fold-over jobs. It needed quite a lot of pushing and pulling to get the thing on, the good fit that it was. This took all of five minutes. And then came the zipper, which, I understand, is also called a slide fastener, because (yes, I get it) it slides along the toothed tracks to fasten or unfasten something. This one was a pretty long zipper--all of 18 inches, which meant some maneuvering to get the fastener to slide. Which it refused to do. It w...

I've reached an age when I'm no longer anxious about age. Well, not in the same way as I was when I was 16, or 30, or even 40. Beyond a point it is no more than a number and the concerns have more to do with the processes that accompany the passage of time rather than any preoccupation with chronology or the idea of "getting old" (or "older").  At 53, I feel fulfilled, yet excited. The fulfillment comes from the aggregation of goodwill that I suddenly become conscious of, in multiple-mediated ways--through cards and texts and whatsapp messages, emails long and short, people suddenly dropping in, unexpected and expected people at the other end of a phone line. The excitement comes from being in a place that I love, doing what I enjoy, looking forward to the possibility and the promise of discovery, at having continued access to the minds (and often hearts) of young people. That's really what keeps me learning--and what better way to live life than to be...

Nothing sets off the fantasy of literary creation like a blank notebook. The fancier, the better. I have my own set of unrealised fantasies unwritten in the pages of a number of beautifully inspirational notebooks. Pages that are smooth, textured, handmade, machine-pressed, ruled, plain, white or coloured. I'm one of those who cannot pass by a Moleskine display without feeling an acquisitive twinge. Just as some people collect shoes and handbags, I collect notebooks. This weekend, I spent some time cleaning out my shelves and was amazed at the number that emerged, some entirely blank and others with a few pages used. In sum, they seemed to represent a whole lot of aspiration and very little work. The aesthetic of the bound empty pages seems to work in a particular way to drive my imagination--and so I spend a good few minutes looking at the inviting blankness, thinking of how they will look in a few months, filled with violet (or black, or blue) ink. I imagine that all those...

I've made so many short visits to so many places, just enough time to get a sort-of sense of a place, and then off. Also, I'm getting to the age where my memories are turning into mush--a sort of treacly mixture of names, images, sensations. Generally good but not very easy to distinguish one spoonful from the next. Of course there are those bits that stand out of the bowl, impressions and experiences which I can go back to and revisit and recognize all the lines and shapes that made them. Right now I'm in Syndey. It is cold but sunny. My mornings are short rushes to the train and the bus and the days are long and somewhat winding as I make my way through papers and people, trying to learn something and share something of what I have learned before. And in the middle of all that, there is still poetry...some of which disappears the moment I've thought the words, and other bits that get written down on scraps of paper. Here's one. It's called "Suburbi...

It's the usual summer Sunday. The day begins with many plans. Groceries are to be bought and cleaning to be done. Old things to be discarded and new fixtures to be installed. Before you know it the heat has got into your head and under your skin and burnt your good intentions to a fine crisp, no smoke even. Going out into the intensity of the growing afternoon is now completely ruled out. And I sit at my computer screen and decide to catch up on that paper that is refusing to write itself, that demands more attention than I have been willing to give it. Sentence by short sentence, I make progress, and it begins to take shape...more in my mind than in MS Word, but nevertheless, I am beginning to discern its outline. The bell rings and my somnolent daughter is roused to go answer it. She comes back quickly with a question on her face and a slightly embarrassed smile: the visitors are for me. Something that happens only rarely. The three young people at the door are smiling and l...

What I love about poetry is the possibility it allows you to capture the little moments in life, in short bursts of expression, and gives you a way to put completely random observations into the verbal equivalent of little perfume bottles to be brought out and opened at will, to give one a whiff of a mood, a moment, an idea, an event. For me, poetry provides an escape from the humdrum. Or perhaps it is more correct to say it allows me to see what exists in the folds of linear time. For instance, when I was sitting watching my students labour over their examination, my mind wandered and wondered about other kinds of writing.... Advice to authors If you want to write books about people unlike yourself, you must bare your eyes and look closely so that the middle-class crust that shields you from offense of the sensory kind, doesn't keep you from seeing/smelling/touching/tasting the entirety of life, including that which is behind the garbage heap and buried under mo...

Twenty years is a long time. It's the kind of time that's needed for good memories to acquire a soft sheen that glows when you look back at them. And that's what I do--smile--when I think of Margie, her wild curls, her black tunic tops, her sparkling eyes half hidden behind the bangs, and her sexy smile. My first days at Grady School as a doctoral student would have been long and lonely without the quick and easy friendship of five women who quite simply took me under their wing and supported me with laughter, navigational tools, even furniture--Melinda, Pat, Margie, Candace and Tonya. Margie, the girl from "the South side of Chicago" was the closest to me in height, and perhaps that's why I found her the easiest to get comfortable with! It also made it possible for her to ensure that I had the right kind of clothes to pack for a two week (work) trip to Hawaii! Memories of the grind of doctoral work are tempered--no, embellished--by the times we all spent...

For those of us who grew up in urban, English-speaking India in the 70s (that's a sure sign of the academic, the need to qualify and delimit the who, when, where, otherwise known as the subject location! ), the title of this post may ring a bell (remember the song Psychobabble by the Alan Parsons Project?). But that's just the inspiration for the title. Last week Prof Ananda Mitra of Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA) visited Hyderabad briefly and talked about his current passion, the idea of "big data" and the "narrative bits" (see http://www.narbs.info/ for more) that we generate as we leave our verbal traces on the Internet through facebook posts and gmail status messages. As I listened to him, this is the verbal trace I generated... Update your status Tweet a tweet Post a post maybe upload an insta-picture and geo-tag yourself into existence. Tell a story of the self and the Other using a virtual machinery of clicks and comment...

When I opened this blank page I intended to write something quite different. I had bounced between windows and chased hyperlinks trying to wrap my head around the issues of the day. Battling patriarchy and the right to take offense, corruption in politics and everyday life, parochialism in national awards, our dismal rating on the human development indicators, and so much else. How does one make sense of anything? Easier, so much easier, to burrow inside a chosen fictional world and take flight with one (not-too-intense) fantasy or another. But again, that's not what I am writing about. I wanted to wonder, instead, about the layered nature of our moments. For instance. I sit here at my laptop which sits on a large rosewood desk covered in kalamkari fabric which I know needs to be pulled off and washed; my mind is half directing my fingers on the keyboard but they seem to have a life of their own; the other half (quarter? tenth?) is taking in the constant sound of the television ...

I don't often go out late at night. And it's been years since I walked on Tank Bund, our local promenade, at any time of day or night. So last night, thanks to a couple of feisty and committed young women, I did both. Hyderabad's Midnight March, called to reinforce the demands for safer public spaces and a change in societal attitudes toward gender and gender-based violence, was by any account a huge success. There were feminists old, young, and in-between, of all genders; mothers with young children in tow and fathers with toddlers on their shoulders; people speaking, singing and shouting slogans in Hindi, Telugu and English; those who fit the misused label of middle class, and many who might not. Things were organized without being restrictively disciplined, there was space for conversation and silence, and above all, there was energy. I ran into many old friends and caught sight of many more recent acquaintances, including a number of young people who had passed throu...

The past week has been one of anger, hopelessness, disgust, anxiety, and more anger. Those of us (and that's many of us) who have been following the events (and non-events) in the aftermath of the rape in Delhi probably have gone through all these emotions and many more along the same continuum. There are commentaries, questions and observations across media, from the strident campaigns on Times Now and CNN-IBN to the columns in The Hindu and on Kafila . Women and young men in Delhi and elsewhere talk about this over coffee and express their outrage on twitter and facebook. A lethargic and slow acting government stoked the anger by not responding soon enough or with enough conviction and determination. Shutting down metro stations and issuing media advisories about "restrained" coverage. Is restraint possible in such situations? Restraint in action perhaps but certainly not in expression of outrage. And then we all carry our fears and hopes into the night and wonder w...

Before one decides to become a parent, I think one should stop and read a set of caveats--sort of like a "Buyer Beware" checklist. When it comes to starting a family, most people articulate it in terms of "having a baby" rather than "becoming a parent". The first brings with it images of a gurgling infant, blowing bubbles and sleeping quietly in a crib attired in frilly clothing, combined with the sense of touch-tender skin and baby-powder smells, all against a soft-focus backdrop in mysteriously appropriate pastel shades. The second--and most of us rarely pause to consider this before we jump into the decision--brings to mind sleepless nights, smelly diapers and a mound of washing,  school choices and adolescent trauma, with career and social life lurking somewhere in the distant background. No soft focus here. The lights are either harsh or throw cold, dark shadows. Don't get me wrong. I've (clearing of throat here) loved the experience, despi...

I'm just back from a gastronomic experience--I threw the challenge of "vegetarian" at my Korean hosts and they came up trumps! In fact, it would have been a vegan delight--I only wish I had a better memory for the names of all the dishes they served. "Authentic Korean" to tell you the truth, aroused a little trepidation. I set out expecting to have nothing more than some tofu and greens and maybe some rice (after verifying that it was not cooked in a meat broth) with the inevitable khimchi of which I am told there are hundreds of varieties. They ushered the few vegetarians in the group to a table at the end of the long room, where we sat crosslegged and were served in the customary style by long-skirted Korean hostesses. After a generous pot of rice wine (which must be vigorously stirred before it is ladled out into earthen bowls) that apparently is more potent than it looks or tastes. The jolly group of Slavs to our left got jollier as the evening wore o...

We've all experienced the feeling. You're at a point when you think there is just no hope for us Indians; there is just too much poverty, too big a social and economic gap between sections of society, and just too little political commitment to set things right. There are too many cars on the road, too little public transport, too many potholes on the roads and too few spaces that allow safe transit for pedestrians. The lines are too long, people push too hard. Competition everywhere, from the classroom to the ticket counter at the railway station. The big picture is just too hard to take. And so we retreat to our little islands, in front of our television screens and computer monitors, into the even tinier interfaces of our mobile devices, playing games and being social in new and different ways. Pull back, long shot, no getting away from it, we still need to negotiate the big bad world and all the people in it. So we set out each morning convinced that we're going to e...

Ja (right) with Maxine, at the Alternative Network meeting, 2004 I opened the newspaper this morning and way down at the bottom of page five was a small insert in remembrance of an old friend and sometime mentor, Janaki Iyer, known simply as "Ja" to many of us.  I myself took a decade or more to make the transition from "Mrs Iyer" to "Janaki" to a very hesitant "Ja"--the diminutive seemed not to do justice to a woman who in a very gentle and quiet way had touched so many people, young, old, and like myself, somewhere in between. First, the specifics. Janaki was a teacher from start to finish. After many years of teaching in an upscale Bombay school, she moved to Hyderabad and, with an enthusiastic friend, started Ananda Bharati, a learning space for children of migrant labourers, in a small room in the YMCA, Tarnaka. Many of those children went on to join the mainstream school system and complete their secondary education; a few even obtai...

Ever since I got back from a Manthan lecture and discussion led by Arun Shourie I’ve been wondering about the nature of participation in such events: they are meant to make us think, open up lines of discussion and explore ideas in a way that they are laid bare, making visible the spaces and interconnections between them and the attitudes they lie/build upon. Mr Shourie, who, I must confess, was one of the heroes of my early journalistic dreams. His front pagers in the Indian Express of the immediate post-Emergency era fuelled my own ambitions and made me feel really proud to be part of a tribe that seemingly was out to catapult the country into a new era of honesty, transparency and fair and clean governance. I was much younger then and could be forgiven for my simple and uncomplicated faith in the power of the press. Much water has passed under the many bridges that make up our fragile polity and I have revised my ideas somewhat, although I try to keep my ideals burnis...

It's one of those things that looms in your mind as you approach the city. If you've grown up reading Cold War spy novels it figures larger than life, mystery on either side and danger in the middle. You recall stories of people building tunnels and finding ways across No Man's Land hiding in improbable ways. And then you see the ghost of a wall on a bright summer day, nothing more than a double row of dark bricks that make a discontinuous line along the middle of a wide Linden-lined avenue. Achala and I go hunting for Checkpoint Charlie, deciding to walk the 5 miles there instead of taking the faster-but-to-our-tourist-minds-more-complicated subway route. Despite faithfully following a map, we fail to make a couple of turns and end up a couple of miles off, and too tired to retrace our steps. We meet a couple who respond to our English with a Nordic smile and point to their watches to indicate it would take us an hour at least to get there. So we leave it for another da...