chamki, you are famous

to see more of chamki, click on the title on this post.

HELL'S BELLS AND FURTIVE FOLLIES

Went to see them last week. beauty. agility. strength. expression.

Journalling faces

a recent journal page...well, not so recent. just got around to scanning them recently. for more of these pages, go here.
the poem on it is Lonely Hearts by Wendy Cope.

A Letter in 3 Stanzas

I

Dear A,

Are you as afraid to say

HEART

as I am?

Has it ceased to you to mean just

'maan',

or something that

loves, feels, can be touched

by random kindness?

Have you started to look

at it

as an

Organ

that may stop beating

today

tomorrow

next year?

II

If mine stops beating

and yours is really close

to it,

can it be

that

yours can beat for both?

III

A beating heart

is

such an intimate thing.

like faces

pressedtogether

in love and fear.

20.01.07

- in a certain context

random musings

A string of posts today. Just feels like one of those days that I have so much to say!
Reading Erica Jong so always plenty to say on that, owing to that.

" Molly is more important than my writing. Any child is."

yes, children are.
because we bring them into this world.
because they don't ask to be born.
because you're all they have.
because they can't make it alone.

another bit from the book:

" i promise unwavering love while you experiment with hate"

says Jong to Molly in her book. Such a lovely thing to say. giving someone you love the freedom to hate you. promising love, still. allowing them to form an opinion. allowing them back in lovingly, openly, immediately. a different dimension to today's love and loving.

"does love necessarily have a gender?"

Jong in a note on homosexuality. i find comfort in this. that there are more people thinking about this. humanising this. accepting this. i feel sexual orientation is different from love. love is humanising. calling a form of affection "gay", is, in many ways, an attempt to dehumanise.
people are people.
not gay. straight. lesbian. jew.proliteriat.

MOBILE BLOGGING

WARDEN ROAD BARISTA, MUMBAI

My date-with-self day. i wrote to chamki. i wrote to abhishek. i drew. i walked. i photographed. and now its time to sip some coffee and write for me.

This is a catching up post for my own reflection more than anything else, but feel free to read and see what i've been up to.

• naina came to mumbai. met her for a day. half a day. nice. but not as intimate nor as momentous as i'd have imagined. why did i think it wouls be momentous? i don't know. comfortable, yes. but with a gap, i think. naina, i never want to lose touch with you!
• taniya the bitch finally got something from me in the mail. a little drawing. a little writing. a lot of love. bitch, i hope you know that.
• chamki came to nepal. and now we are sisters. the rest is not history as they would have said. but an ever deepening philosophy. Chamki, you have something waiting for you.
• bani asked if i could do the storyline and script for an animation. bani, thanks for thinking of me, and i hope i do you justice!
• mail art has been paused for a while now, in favour of personal creation, and giving art to friends and family. mail artists, a little patience. you will have art your way soon!
• Tommy Kane got fan mail from me. lol. (and replied!)

Bandra Bonding

bandra walk
Originally uploaded by mahimaisme.

Part of the many Birthday pages

click on the post title to see more

CHAMKI, NEPAL

Mapping the world around me

This map maps the way from peddar road to kemps corner in mumbai, india.

It includes major pit stops and landmarks along the way. The key is here:

• Anda Pau is a tiny shack where we eat basics. Reasonable and interesting.
• KMD stores is a basic provision store which has just bout everything- except stationery.
• Sophia is my college.
• Chinese Guy is next o a petrol pump and has chinese, wraps and rolls, and desserts. Multi-purpose pit stop and reasonable prices.
• Coffee Guy is a vendor on the road who owns a corner of the road and some stairs along the way. He serves good coffee, cold coffee, chocolate mousse, ice cream, chocolates...the works. along with great breeze, and a smoke should you want one.
• muchad paanwala is mumbai-famour for his (you guessed it!) paan.
• warden's collection is a stationery shop we love and frequent.

Learning to Love You More

You: Hello?

Me: Hey.

You: I have some things I want to say.

Me: me too.

You: But maybe that can all wait.

Me: yes, maybe we’ll screw it more if we talk about it right now.

You: I’m already saturated. I don’t think I can right all this anyway.

Me: me neither. But it’s not your fault or mine. We together screwed up somewhere, I think. And I don’t know how we can get back what we had.

You: I hope we can. Everything seems heightened. Every mistake seems huge, just another screw up. All the laughter feels fleeting.

Me: I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, or how we could have gotten to this stage so suddenly. From one moment to the next, everything changed. I wish you’d just told me earlier. I was here. I would have wanted to know: even if for no other reason than that I’d like to have been comforted, and I’d like to have been there to comfort you.

You: …

Me: don’t say sorry or say I know. I know you’re sorry. I am too. But just listen. I have so much to say and so much I haven’t said because “sorry” always gets in the way. This isn’t about a guilt trip or about mistakes. I only want to be heard. Just listen. Please.

This is an assignment for the Learning to Love You More project. The instructions are as follows:

Assignment #52

Write the phone call you wish you could have.

using a black pen, draw a picture of your cell phone. Be very precise and make your phone look as realisti possible, you can trace the shape of the phone if you want. Please make your drawing by hand, not with a computer. In the window where the caller name appears, write the name of the person who you wish would call you. If you have to, use a fake name. Don't draw anything except the phone, leave the rest of the paper blank. In a separate email document, type the conversation you wish you could have with this person. Use dialogue format.

For more information on this project, and more assignments, click on the post title.

wheels of change

we sat on the feris wheel today.

bhotu, chamki, sam and me.

such brief a period it was.

i thought of richard bach, of

"your life is turning tonight.

can you feel it?"

i think i felt it.

something was pulling me in a direction

that was at once familiar

and new

inviting, loving, intimate, even,

without being pseudo.

the wheel turned

slowly,

rhythmycally.

as we screamed for it to stop, we were also

exhilerated

by the experience of it.

the

wheel

was

turning

-still-

long

after

we

thought

we

had

gotten

off

it.

BANDRA AUTO

agent provocateur- bull crap

PICTURE PERFECT

one of the pages i did during the magazine altering spree. click on the title to see more pages altered during that time.

Pencilling in the old year

IMPRESSIONS 2007

This is the cover to my journal for 2007 which is ready now. For more pages from this book, click on the title of this post.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is the page i did while on the carol singing rounds day before. This is to say MERRY CHRISTMAS and I hope you and I will make more hearts happy this year.

random notes

This is a page off my journal again. Done partly in literature class and mostly at Barista. Top left is pallavi's hair in a plait(you have to look carefully to see this. lol). next to it is the label of the coke bottle i had with me that day. just below that is a Barista logo. and below that are my cards for 14th December 2006 drawn from the sacred rose.

Carol Ann Duffy

I discovered Carol Ann duffy in literature class today. Now I'm here finding as moch more from her as i can.

First, the poem I read first. We analysed it in class. and i can still remember lines and sounds off it.

Carol Ann Duffy

PRAYER

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre