Soul Stirred Food

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Kerala Inspired Sweet potato Mash ( green chilles, coconut oil, lemon juice and fine chopped onions)
Baba Ginosh goes White ( roasted aubergine with yoghurt adn olive oil with roasted cumin powder)
Homous sans Chickpeas ( chana daal boiled and sesame seeds paste with dash of olive oil and a whiff of oreganno)
Peanut and tomato stew ( fry curry patta and rye seeds with tomato puree, add peanut mash and steamed veggies in the end)
Mulled wine experimental ( diced apples are added in the end to wine which ahs been heated with cinnamon and star aniseed, and a splash of orange juice if mixed in there)
Amber mor rice

That Woman

by tishani doshi

that woman is here again
she's found her way out
from under the stairs
for centuries she's been weeping a song
about lost men,
the disappearance of beauty.

now she's back in the world
down by the traffic lights
n the shade of trees
hurryin to the parlour
to fix the crack in her face

don't become that woman
my mother said,
by which sje meant,
don't become that woman
who doesn't marry
or bear children

that woman who spreads her legs
who is beaten, who cannot hold,
her grief or her drink,

don't become that woman,

but that woman and I,
have been moving together for years,
like a pair of birds,
skimming the surface of water,
always close to the soft madness,
of coming undone.

the dark undersides of our bodies
indistinguishable
from our reflections.

history of the dead

I have been exploring how to keep the memories of my sister, Harry, alive, especially in the week of my cousin sister's wedding which synchronicitily fell on harry's death anniversary, 17th november. I am aware that in the joint family that I exist in, the general decorum is that of meting ignorance towards any eccentricity that might wear it's head up, higher or lower than the agreed benchmark. Upon my return to the family home after an obsolence of three years, the same being the time interval between harry's passing, i was quite surprised to encounter the resistance of the entire family in talking about the one who has gone before us. This resistance transpired into an absence of her photograph from the altar in the living room , where my dad's picture hung with my paternal grandmother's(who incidentally passed away three years after harry..so in order of precedence...her portrait should have followed harry's), leaving the obvious vacuum in the hall as there was the missing portrait of the one in question, to my fresh foreign returned, eyes.

After having a healthy discussion with my aunt and my mother over this dilema that continues to haunt me, i came upon an epiphany..which i haven't written about earlier.but when i read this essay,"Silence and Invisibility" by Giti Thadani in a collection of  lesbian writing,"facing the mirror", it brought home the realisation, what is not talked about, is forgotten. "Ignorance.When something is ignored, it will gradually lose any vitality it once had, first becoming invisible and then finally disappearing altogether. If memory is not passed on in some coherent way, that which is not remembered no longer exists, and it can then be said that it never existed."

Whilst thinking about those who have gone before us, there are many tribes, who practice this ritual of not naming the dead. They believe that the souls get perturbed in their abodes and if they are not named, these souls would continue to exist in another dimension and not be invited into ours. William Mcdonough in his book, Cradle to Cradle, talks about the ultimate recycling practiced by a north indian tribe of bengal or orissa, where the ashes of the dead are cooked with a ceremonial dinner, which is eaten by all.
I feel the stark absence of harry's picture and even her name from daily conversations in the family, and when i bring up a happier memory in a bid to celebrate her life and acknowledge her presence in this family house for twenty five years of her life, it is greeted by an awkward pause or requests to leave the negative energy of her be and not invite it back into this house. This brings me to realise how harry's suicide and passing over has been swept under the 'great big indian carpet'.
John Berger, says this in "Ways of Seeing",  "When we see a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we 'saw' the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are prevented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs to us. Who benefits from this deprivation? In the end, the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged  minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer make sense in modern times. And so, inevitably it mystifies."

nazar

voh teri nazar..
voh meri nazar..
humnazar...
magar.
.na voh ho sakaa...

tuney chaahaa toh thaa ..
bahuton ko magar...
tujhey mehsoos..
kaunsa kar sakaa...

hum miley toh they kissi raah par..
humdagar...
magar....
..na voh ban sakaa...

tuney uthaya toh thaa..
ik kalam sa ..
humkhabar..
magar...
naa voh kagaz ho sakaa....

(penned 19 october 2010)

cycles of Life

Some reflections from the few days spent in god's own country.
the first indecisive pedals to the now finality of things.
from the corners being the observer, there is now a sense of being observed.
broken and soldered, indeed, like all the cycle parts, but never sound.
the soldering is essentially bringing together of two parts of the same element with the help of some other, previously unnecessary, but in the immediacy of things, elevating it's status to a V.I.T. (very important thing) element.
Flowing in the fresh water rivers, perched utop watery bridges, slipping off, sliding into, falling face down, the water cleanses each time...the sweat mixes, becoming one. Where one ends, the other begins.
Did the river know when it would meet the sweat and did the sweat know it would mix so well..in the river..
and when the sweat meets the river..will the sweat loose itself in the river..or will the river be river because of the sweat mixed in it..?
(penned on 1 November 2010)

time

So i say goodbye to you my friend...
from the names i gave you..
some misnomers..some cross wires..
to the many reflections i mirrored..
from the many loops.. to the peruvian hoops..

from the rides anew,
Tvs atop to Atlas springs,
the seeds within..
to the seeds without.

pebbles come and pebbles go,
the rides in the same river of time,
we together again might never row.

you my love, will remain,
somewhere
someday
someway
we might sight,
a new light.

the chorus will be sung,
same ladder, only with a newer rung.
and then the you in you,
will know,
what the me in me,
 i sought.

touch,
gaze,
explore,
surrender.

life seldom pleases to pause.

jungle,
ocean,
sea
and rock,
knew later,
when much time had past.

what they did when they met,
and whether there love would last.

(penned 20 October 2010)

So Much Happiness

by Naomi Shihab Nye 

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change. 
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
And disappears when it wants to. 
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches, 
And love even the floor which needs to be swept,
The soiled linens and scratched records….
Since there is no place large enough 
To contain so much happiness,
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you 
Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,
And in that way, be known.