Ode to the land I love..
Very poetic, huh? When I think of how the western world seems to hold so much charm for the average Indian, it irritates me. What do they see in it anyway??
I love travelling and visiting new places but to live anywhere but in Chennai would be impossible for me. What would I do without the bustle of a bazaar, gully cricket, sand-garnished beach sundal and 10 rupees movie tickets? Where would one find the easy familiarity that allows one to drop in without a prior phone call? Forget me, how would children learn to be children in the antiseptic world abroad? Some of my best memories as a kid are building rivers in the mud outside my house and sailing paper boats in the pouring rain, leaping terrace to terrace while playing police and robber and arriving home at the end of the day with dirty clothes and a cut lip acquired after fighting on the road with boys. Can’t imagine doing any of it outside India. Would be hard-pressed to even find the mud to play in…
Where else in the world would u find the riot of colours one sees in a marriage celebration or at a temple festival? Where else the variety of languages, religions, food, culture? Maamis strolling to the temple sharing the latest gossip, someone breaking a pumpkin outside their shop to ward off the evil eye, a tender coconut seller deftly wielding his aruvaal, a lone painter high on his scaffolding, lettering a billboard, women, their hair wrapped in towels, putting kolams on their thresholds, rowers practising for the next regatta on the dirty adyar river, the guy with the pushcart selling plastic saamaan….I'd go crazy without it all. I love every nook and corner; every by-lane with its array of pavement shops, every tiny hotel serving fantastic food (well, diahorrea is a possibility but not for someone like me who has a cast iron stomach… heh heh...), the marina, the lights, sounds and colour!
As Kim says in Rudyard Kipling’s famous novel- this is a great and beautiful land, this land of Hind… and Chennai is the fairest of 'em cities!! I don’t say Chennai is perfect; far from it, there are a million things I’d love to see changed, but I wouldn’t exchange Chennai for all the convenience and modernity that the west has to offer.. No way!
Vive Chennai!

I admire the Dadaists. They were mad.
I’m sorry for u, my reader cos I’m in a perverse mood today and am going to unreservedly crib. This is not an enjoyable blog, so read only if u r in as bad a mood as I am. And I warn u, ur mood will not improve.
The Dadaists were a set of free thinkers. They didn’t believe in the set principles of the world. They were rebels. Dada knows everything, Dada spits on everything. Dada has no fixed ideas. A reaction to the war, the Dada movement rebelled against very civilization itself. It’s rather difficult trying to describe a group who stated they were nothing, yet everything.
They were rather cool in the way that they tore apart everything, yet accepted everything. If someone entered their group and said he was an artist, he was. Even if he couldn’t lay pencil on paper. He was an artist cos that’s what he said he was and that’s all is needed for art. What is art anyway but an expression of self? Who can judge what is art and what is not?
What is the point, u may ask.
The point is that I have reached breaking point. I have been tolerating that my paintings are marked for the past two and half years and I haven't let it bother me too much. It is necessary that we need to be marked during the formative period so we grasp the basic principles but this is my third year and I don’t like it being dictated to me how I should express myself. Why do I have to put up with someone giving me a 70 for a painting just because they don’t like my style? I don’t paint for their satisfaction, I paint for mine. If I am not allowed to use my creativity, how can I call myself an artist? Where did free expression go??
Art is subjective and I don’t think anyone has the right to judge whether my work is good or bad or whether my friend’s work is better or worse than mine. Any 2 people might view the same work differently; one might feel I deserve 90; the other might hate my way of depiction and think I deserve 30. So where does that leave me? I don’t think marking art is either practical or useful except if one is trying to read into the viewer’s character, not the artist’s.
But why should I have a problem now? I've been known to stick on my walls works for which I’ve been marked 30 because I like it, even if my teacher doesn’t. I guess the end point is that rejection always hurts, even if one is blessed with a thick skin. I recently wrote a book review on the Zahir for my popular fiction paper and got marked 30 for that out of 50, which is also a rather sad mark. The point was that the teacher was not fond of philosophy and disliked the book. Even if I had just been marked for my grammar and basic writing skill, I should have got better marks. So where does she get off marking me subjectively for a piece of writing that is essentially me?
Rejection hurts. This world sucks. Big time.

I was reading something today and came across the word benchmark.. Weird how a single word triggers a thousand memories.... It got me thinking of my English classes and i think thats what i'll write about today.I've always loved English class..English was the only paper i could score without touching the book and since i have been a book-a-holic from the time i could read (which was from the time i was five, i think) , i had very little problem with my grammar or composition. And i communicate much better in writing than by speech.. The only few years i had a problem were my 6th, 11th and 12th, when i hated my teachers. Well, I guess it is a bit difficult for the teachers to cope in schools where they have to deal with a class of 50, each student with different capabilities, but in many ways, its better not to be taught english at all than to be taught the way it had been done at school. Which brings me to the word benchmark.When i first entered college, we were split up into 3 streams. Heard the A stream or advanced stream was tough, so purposely wrote a bad essay in the aptitude test.. only 2 girls got thru in my entire class and one of them had to be me..and there were only 50 girls in my A stream class from my entire year. The first week was almost like a culture shock. There were no specified books and only our writing skills were concentrated upon.. We worked on paragraph writing - descriptive, narrative, analytical, response writing, note making and essay writing.. And the topics we took up!! Gender issues, dream theories, social themes.. It opened up a new world altogether. I mean, one can't talk about the tribes of India, the plight of the third sex or cross border conflicts without doing some serious time in the library. And everyone in my class was brilliant.. For me the transition from what my teacher in school expected from me and what i was expected to do in this class was frighteningly drastic. But after that terrifying first week when i felt most of what my class was talking about go whistling over my head, i settled down and started enjoying myself. The authors we took up were contemporary Indian ones - Mohinder Singh Sarna, Sujatha Bhatt, Ranjit Hoskote.. I discovered i hated indian authors. Most of them wrote very intellectual stuff that one had to read a few times to get the point of.. and most of them are depressing. Jhumpa Lahiri is reasonable, as in, i liked Interpreter of Maladies but i didnt enjoy her novel, the Namesake. Monica Ali's Brick Lane was nice as well, but one can hardly look to indian authors for entertaining reads. Most of them deal with the confusions an NRI goes through, a topic i dont give a damn about. I mean, why write in a style that gives your readers a headache?? Even if one is dealing with a serious issue, it can be written so that it is readable by everyone, which accounts for the popularity of books like the Alchemist that reach out to the common man..it is only in the intellectual circles that these books do the rounds and thats sad. Our debates were like raging wars and thoroughly entertaining to watch (i never took part, as i said, my communication skills start and end with the pen) and i marvelled at girls who knew so much and who could argue so forcefully....Ok, im getting off track as usual.Benchmark.. we were asked to write the third paragraph of an essay with the topic being benchmark. I almost cried. If i had been asked to write the first paragraph, its reasonable.. But third paragraph only?? Finally i wrote the first 3, then rewrote the third on a separate sheet and submitted it. Exam papers were scary things cos one never knew what to expect. My teacher was perfectly capable of giving a question like the benchmark one.. I remember once she gave us a question where she asked us to arrive at a statement on the word coercion and to build the same into a paragraph using an example. Scary. I was sure i'd fail every paper i attempted.Although in a lot of ways, it was one of the most demanding papers i had that year, it was also one of the most exhilerating.. To struggle for four hours in the library to produce five lines for a response writing assignment.. i've often asked myself if its worth it.. And i've always discovered that yes, it is worth it, not cos of my teachers approval of the style and content of my work but cos of the personal satisfaction that comes with doing a good job. And thanks to that one year, there is a very pronounced difference in my style and i have managed to get enough practice at writing so as to be able to write about anything, anytime. And that, my friends makes it worth all the struggle!
(The main reason i wrote this is cos i miss having english classes!! Took up popular fiction as my GE this year but it didnt come close.. sigh!!)

when one thinks of overcoming one's fears, conquering the self and reaching a higher plane, one tends to connect it to something heroic or at least interesting.. well, for me, most of life's battles have been on a small scale.. actually they could hardly be called battles to anyone else..i had one such 'battle' today.
i went to the post office.
yeah, keep laughing, i know its funny..
firstly, i almost died in the attempt-reason #1 to call it a notable victory. reason #2 would be the overcoming of fear, self-conquering(almost destroying?) and the higher plane aspects. well, if anyone could make the trip to the post office the drama it was, it had to be me.
this morning, appa asked me to bulk post some letters for him at the mount road post office. and to buy an envelope and post another letter as well.. i seriously didnt feel like going outta the house and catching some dumb, crowded 27D, especially on the one day i didnt have to catch it for college. and i wanted to wash my hair; it was feeling like coconut coir...anyway, by the time i'd slowly, unwillingly, gotten ready, it was around 1.30. just lay down for a few minutes and managed to fall fast asleep.. and got up at 4.00. amma was back from work and i took her bike very happily.. managed to catch the evening traffic, almost miss the post office and very literally become a traffic-stopper by cutting across 3 lanes.. got some very interesting vocabulary in return for my thrill trip, though.. didnt know where to do the bulk posting, found out after wandering about a bit, went to the main post office to pay the receipt and then belatedly remembered about the individual mail. wandered about a bit more and managed to send off all the bulk mails.. then discovered that the envelope i had bought was a little too zealously stuck so i couldnt put the letter inside.. after some bitter complaints to the poor bulk mail attendant who had nothing to do with it all, i managed to stuff it in and mail it.. finally finished all the work and started back home.. was in a rather aimless mood and thats a little dangerous for me cos i tend to ride on automatic. and lose track of the route im taking. took some weird route and finally found myself thankfully on beach road. when i finally got back home, i found out that my mom had ridden past her friend's house by accident and that my sister had hit a car..... guess it runs in the family!!

Phrases.
idle as dead leaves spinning in the breeze.
no need to reason.
just let go or regroup for further battle.
contemplate.
unity in isolation.

we had a workshop on spaces. pick a space, any space and look at it. what does that space mean to you? how do u react to that space? now work on what uve got. create art in that space. an art that defines both u and that space in the same breath. that was our brief. man, that was pretty depressing.. i was in no mood to think. all that was on my mind was how i was going to do 3 paintings in one week when i'd taken three months to do the first three. i think i snapped at anyone who was fool enough to get within a 2 mtr radius round me..
our group had 7 people and we picked 2 spaces that meant the most to us as a group. we picked performance art to express our ideas. one space was where we eat everyday, where we speak out, argue, gossip.. the other is this flight of steps near the canteen where we chill out when we bunk.. here we dont talk much, just sit around, read, msg.. sometimes one-on-one personal talk. two spaces that we reacted to so differently. we used footprints off different colours to link the 2 spaces. each colour signified one individual. and we read a poem at the end of the performance.
thats the poem at the head of this entry. and i thought up the whole thing.. theme, concept, presentation! cool, huh.. wrote the poem too.. was some last minute rubbish.. forgot all about it and then jus wrote somethin off the top of my head.. everybody was impressed.. mainly cos they couldn't really get what i was talkin about.. it sounded intelligent and high funda.. but all they are are just phrases that popped into my mind when i thought of that space.. hehehe.. well, the more impressive it sounds, the less people like admitting they dont get it.. no one likes looking dumb.. good for me.. if someone had asked me what it meant, i could have hardly given a satisfactory answer..
it was a nice exercise.. took a lot outta me those three days.. no one else outside of my dept could understand.. 98% of the world doesnt get what performance art is. and even if they do, they think- big deal. so they made some footprints. i could do that. well, they could if they thought the way i do. very few people think the way i do. most of them dont even know what i think. the workshop made no earthshattering change- our class is damn good and we came up with some brilliant stuff- but it did make me look at spaces a little more closely. each space means something different to each person. i mean, take the windowsill on the room on my terrace for instance.. to me its my all time favourite chill out spot.. ive sat there for hours, reading, msging, writing, doing homework, cramming last minute for an exam, just idly dreaming.. for my brother, its something to stand on so he can climb onto the roof and play police and robbers. for the maid, its something to keep the clips on as she hangs out clothes to dry..for others, it may just be a windowsill, nothing more.. see what i mean? we are all just passing thru, but each of us leave something of us behind. and that space records that memory.
hmmm.. i seem to specialize in writing things that are understandable only to me.. that was always my english teacher's complaint.. i think thats more than enough crap for one entry...