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sometimes you can't wait for inspiration to complete things that you really want to complete. even if it means forcing yourself. even if you hate forcing yourself.

"Kaise Mujhe"

(listen)

(Ho…)

Kaise mujhe tum mil gayi
Kismet pe aaye na yaqeen
Utar aayee jheel mein
Jaise chaand utarta hai kabhi
Houle houle dheere se

Gunguni dhoop ki tarah se tarang mein tum
Chooke mujhe guzri ho yun
Dekhoon tumhe ya main sunoo
Tum ho sukoon tum ho junoon
Kyun pahle na aayeen tum
Kaise mujhe tum mil gayi
Kismet pe aye na yaqeen

(Ho…)

Main to ye sochta tha ki aaj kal
Upar waale ko fursat nahi
Phir bhi tumhe banake woh
Meri nazar mein chadh gaya
Rutbe mein woh aur badh gaya

(Aa…)
(Ho…)

Badale raaste jharne aur nadi badale reet ki tim tim
Chhedhe zindagi dhool koi nahi badale barkha ki rim jhim
Badalegi rituen ada
Par main rahoongi sada
Usi tarah teri bahon mein bahen daalke
Har lamha har pal

(Aa…)

Zindagi sitar ho gayi
Rim jhim malhar ho gayi
Mujhe aata nahi
Kismet pe apne yaqeen…..yaqeen
Kaise mujhko mil gayi tum

"Where Lesbians Come From"

It is true that lesbians do not have families;
we have pretend family relationships.
We do not have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters;
our sons and daughters do not count at all,
having no families within which to rear them.
And our lovers - there's nothing in that
but something mocking truth;
for you know it's true
that lesbians do not have families, like you...

We emerge, instead, complete from some dark shell,
beds and beds of us (like oysters,
what else would I mean?)
sea-born on stormy nights
with the wind in a certain quarter.
We rise and wiggle, all slippery and secret,
curling and stretching and glad to be alive,
untangling our hair from the wind and salt and seaweed.
We steal clothes from washing lines,
and once it's daylight, almost pass for human.

Glowing into warmth in the sun or a hard north wind
we lick the salt from our lips,
for now. And smile.
We live for a while, in the light,
despite your brutal laws
and your wish that we were not here;
we return to our beds by moonlight
to nurture and foster the sweet salt shells
that give birth to our lesbian futures.
And there we plot, in our dark sea beds,
the seduction of your daughters.

~Jan Sellers

happy new year!

"No Longer a Teenager"

my daughter, who turns twenty tomorrow,
has become truly independent.
she doesn't need her father to help her
deal with the bureaucracies of school,
hmo's, insurance, the dmv.
she is quite capable of handling
landlords, bosses, and auto repair shops.
also boyfriends and roommates.
and her mother.

frankly it's been a big relief.
the teenage years were often stressful.
sometimes, though, i feel a little useless.

but when she drove down from northern California
to visit us for a couple of days,
she came through the door with the biggest, warmest hug in the world for me.
and when we all went out for lunch,
she said, affecting a little girl's voice,
"i'm going to sit next to my daddy,"
and she did, and slid over close to me
so i could put my arm around her shoulder
until the food arrived

i've been keeping busy since she's been gone,
mainly with my teaching and writing,
a little travel connected with both,
but i realized now how long it had been
since i had felt deep emotion.

when she left i said, simply,
"i love you,"
and she replied, quietly,
"i love you too."
you know it isn't always easy for
a twenty-year-old to say that;
it isn't always easy for a father.

literature and opera are full of
characters who die for love:
i stay alive for her.

Gerald Locklin

heroes

commitment phobic
selfish
unsure
no time
under confident
clueless
don't want to bother with hardwork
can't imagine future
overworked
no real skills to contribute

(were there no heroes who charged at them not really caring about their own life? only happens in movies?)

what about education?
i think we can map out the decision making tree of our entire governance system
plug leek by leek
redefine. reinvent.
this system has been around for only 60 odd years, who said we can't change it.
change it completely.
as they all say -- slowly but surely.

i think the logical path to take is
1. learn about the governance system in all countries of the world
2. define what works for India
3. start making it happen (the smaller things can start in the meantime

"By Small and Small: Midnight to Four A.M."

For eleven years I have regretted it,
regretted that I did not do what
I wanted to do as I sat there those
four hours watching her die. I wanted
to crawl in among the machinery
and hold her in my arms, knowing
the elementary, leftover bit of her
mind would dimly recognize it was me
carrying her to where she was going.

Jack Gilbert

:(

this is what it is like to fight with everyone you know.
and this is what it is like to fight with everyone you love.

not so easy in the real world

up down up down

It's never beyond repair. That's the one thing i can safely say about friendship.. It's never beyond repair. Marriages can go beyond repair, because a marriage by definition requires that you like and love the person your spouse becomes with time. You are expected to expend a lot of time with this new person (that your spouse may grow to become). This expectation becomes stifling and leads to irrepairability. But the whole beauty about friendship is this process of growth in a person. Your friends are people you choose as friends because you want to see them grow. As people, as individuals, as a parent, as a grandparent. It's a willing arrangement that you have gotten into. And the best part is that you don't have to be with them all the time. It's a demand-supply relationship, isn't it?

~Veena (Reference)

sadly, only two-dimensional

i like the idea that the earth is alive.

Where is Gandhi?

With all this talk about war on Pakistan, I’m wondering if the people of Mumbai have forgotten the merits of non-violence. For me, living in urban Mumbai, it’s hard to imagine that 100 years ago in India there was bloodshed all over. Or that World War I was just some 80 years ago. Or just 20 years ago there was blood spewing out of Liberia.

It is difficult to believe how easy it is to forget.

But it is also wonderful that I’m not plagued with any form of hatred for any community – not the British who killed our forefathers and played a role in dividing our country, not the East Germans for god knows how many atrocities Hitler committed against the Jews, and certainly not the folks over in Ivory Coast, although Liberia is still in a bad state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia.

It’s not Mumbai that is resilient, or New York: It is humans that are. The basic philosophy of why blame others for crimes their nation or ancestors committed is correct. And let us clarify once and for all: MUSLIMS NOT EQUAL TO PAKISTANIS NOT EQUAL TO TERRORISTS.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying let Pakistan go scot-free if they (or militant groups residing therein) have indeed engineered the attack (which I believe they have – I don’t think the BJP or Raj are intelligent or ruthless or stupid enough to engineer such an attack). But before launching into an America-style war, weigh all the available options very carefully.

Being an apathetic soul largely unaware of history, the only thing I have been able to gather is that as individuals no one really likes violence, but as a group, as a herd, violence seems to be a natural instinct. So I urge the people of Mumbai and the government to please first educate yourself on the criticism that America received before launching into war. Make a list of all the available options and then one by one see what can be done causing minimum deaths.

I’m going to end here as I don’t have enough knowledge to say any more. Just that let us try and minimize the loss of life in our crusade against terror.

citzens in governance

We'll start with this.
Let's!

who cares

i've really never cared much about society
really i haven't
not through any of the terror over the years
it's a complete "whatever" attitude
about terror
about politics
about society
i never want to take a stand
i always want to build my own little world
with my own little morals
and my own little values
and live there
but not this past week
this past week i feel my thoughts changing
is it time to transform again?
to really draw

to-do

Sharad had one:
The maximum age of a PM should be 50-55 years.
Reason: To run a country, you need to make decisions looking at a 20 year horizon.
However, at 70, the next 20 years does not really include you. So you can't really make decisions for a future that you are not going to be a part of. That is, as humans, it is difficult for us to imagine things for others, irrespective of intention.
Most of the politicians in our country today are above 70.

One real question I want to ask is, right now, most of the youth are pretty charged.
So what's the next step for the pretty charged youth?
I think this Wednesday meet, or whichever meet, should be run by someone who can provide those what-next answers. Instead of us "exclaiming solidarity" and "condemning terror," tell us, how can we offer our brains and hands and legs to changing the situation, before it all dies out once again, and the fucked up cycle resumes?

Today Sharad has suggestions and would ideally like to change the country some time in the future. But today he is busy concentrating on business. By the time he is 45 and able is he still going to be interested in politics, or is that interest going to die? Who knows.

Are there any 45 year old's out there who were once filled with much passion and wisdom, but chose to apply it to business, and are now settled enough to give politics a shot? Are there? Are there? Those are the people we have to find, and awaken. Those are our future leaders. Those and us, as a team.