Beauty’s Lair

I love that phrase.  I don’t know why I like it so much but the abstraction of it all intrigues me; beauty hiding, waiting to be unleashed in its full force.  I saw such beauty last night at my ten year old neighbor, Shruthi’s, arangetram.  I have to be honest and divulge that I was a bit hesitant to go to the performance, but I am so happy I made the decision to go.  I realize that there is so much to be learned from a young girl’s passion for dance – the abhinaya and pure joy she exuded were so heartwarming.   I was especially impressed with her stylistic expressions of fear, happiness, and embodying her mother (telling stories to her while feeding her, and rocking her (as a baby) to sleep), during the Varnam (the most important part of the performance).  I was blown away.  She also did an awesome rendition of Krishna going out to play against Yashoda’s wishes. 

I am contemplating the whole missing aspect again.  Perhaps I need to immerse myself in this feeling completely, instead of trying to find things to fill this so called seeming void.  But I am complete with or without you…yet why do I still cling to those surreal times, those moments of staring at each other in the eyes for minutes, of playing the blinking game, of just feeling that special and overwhelming transference of energies? I miss you.  I know you miss me too.  I’m sorry but I couldn’t deal with what I felt anymore.  I had to let you go.  I don’t know if this makes sense.  I don’t understand why you keep popping up in my thoughts, in my dreams, in my very essence.  Are you transferring your thoughts to me?  Am I just nuts?  You said my words were sans compassion but I know you know otherwise.  I was and have always been brutally honest with you.  I wanted you to be the best person you could be, but I soon realized that I was getting invested in this, and this conditionality was building up, expectations, and lack of trust just created a tenuous imbalance. You’re strong and you don’t need me.  Sometimes love is proved in letting go yaar. I let go for both of us to heal properly.  I believe in you, and I know that I will feel you rise…soon. Love ya always punk.

I knew you in a past life

i knew you in a past life

i knew you in a past life

your essence saunters slowly and

salaciously

through

all my inner recesses

but i can only guess

who you are

who are you?

this can’t be deja vu…

were you the tempted or the temptation

the desirous dream

or the dreamer,

the one with

or without a home?

you won’t leave me alone

who are you

why do you keep coming back

what is it that you lack

for you to be so

drawn to my essence?

some sensations sense

vibrations that vibe with yours

but it’s not something you lack

it’s something beyond

white and

black

I’ve Got Sunshine & A Surprise

I’m listening to the Temptations as I type – thus the weird title.  This post is going to be therapeutic if nothing else…so many striking, significant things have happened over the past few days, so much processing, silence, fasting and welling up of tears sans relief.  Have you ever wanted to just recklessly cry?  I’ve been wanting to do it since Thursday but for some reason the emotion doesn’t materialize into something so concrete.  I had a lengthy conversation with Pappu (Nabil) about how we’re both psycho and will just listen to a song on repeat (try 89 times), something so intense, something that evokes an emotion that envelopes and almost consumes our essence.  Feeling something at its very core, the raw core, the ugliness which oftentimes translates into the bare truth, over and over again…it’s incomprehensibly therapeutic to me, but it might just be a sign of a hopeful (or hopeless) sign of a crazed romantic. 

My thoughts, prayers and deep wishes for strength, ekta, and compassion go out to Sameer’s friends and family.  I never knew him, but his story touched me, and it’s such a tremendous loss…I prayed for you man…I am happy that you are in peace now, and were able to bring such a pure love into this world.   Thank you for your positive presence and energy, you will always be missed, remembered, and loved. I’m also having a hard time reconciling this love I hold.  Sometimes this love is overbearing, all consuming, and at other times it is indifferent, callous, and selfish.  I just want to achieve a state of love that just IS.  I received this quotation in the mail today, and it sums it up beautifully:The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation.

Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. — Ram Dass Meditation, fasting this past week, and Kathak have helped, but I think this is going to take some time to fully understand and process to achieve that state of stability. It’s of course an ongoing process that requires a lot of honing.  I’ve realized that no matter how sad that I get, I can’t help but be happy and thankful for living such a wonderful life!

I went to Kathak class today at 9am and was just in a focused flowing state of mind.  A new floor is going to be placed in the studio, so there was a lot of shit strewn all over the place.  We moved it all and started with pranaam.  I was a little nervous because I hadn’t practiced for a few days, but the class went well.  Rachna didi called me (only one!) to get tested on the solagun (sixteen beat) tihais (rhythmic cycle that repeats itself three times) next week, so I will be on the spot next week, which means I must practice.  Second class with Charlotte didi was also great, with some more testing and emphasis on tatkar, and again getting tested on the spot with a recitation of the theka (the tabla bols, beats) to aatgun (eight beat tatkar, which is basically eight steps in every beat), which went fine and dandy.  But the biggest surprise was Dada ji (Chitresh Das, our Guru ji) coming in unexpectedly near the end of the class!  I haven’t seen Dada in a while (the classes are now taught by assistant teachers) but what an awesome surprise and entrance. When I first started taking Kathak 20 years ago, I remember Dada teaching all the classes, and even being bribed to master a particular composition or recitation with Hershey’s bars or even $1 bills!  Haha…I look back and think to myself…”Damn, Dada is truly the real shabang because who else would pay his students to learn Jamunaaki (a composition of Krishna dancing on the banks of the River Jamuna).”  His passion, presence and life long mentorship has been something so precious that I am so very grateful to have.  I can’t even express it in words.

Anyway, Dada walks into the room, all mad and making these hilariously sarcastic (I seriously had to stifle my laughter by biting my tongue) remarks about the teachers not acknowledging his presence earlier, how we’re not real Indians, just ABCDs, and I was like damn, it’s been so long, but I feel some things just don’t change.   Anyway we moved on to do our chakkars (turns) for a certain composition (so basically 9 turns per cycle for three cycles = 27 turns all together).  I am dancing in the front of the class and a lil bit nervous because this is the first time I am dancing in front of Dada ji in 10 years!  But he senses that all 25 students are getting nervous and tells us not to look at him, to spot (for balance) in the mirror, and go at a slower pace to complete the 27 turns.  I am still pretty much in my zone, focused and do the first 9 turns.  He says to stop and comes over to me, makes eye contact and says “Good! You look so much better with your shoulders down.  See how beautiful you look when you open your arms?” and that just made my day.  I know it sounds stupid, but he just picked me up, and made me feel good again.  It’s odd, but growing up going to dance class every Saturday, he would yell and be really rude to all my other classmates sans me.  There was this unspoken compassion and gentleness that he would always show me, and showed me again today. His love is so amazingly acute and aware…

Yes We Can – On Change and Momentum

I’m in love with the video sing song that Will.i.am made, based on Obama’s recent speech after the New Hampshire primary.  After so long, someone has come to really inspire, really move the people to believe in the full potential of HOPE:When you are truly inspired..magic happens…incredible things happen…love happens..(and with that combination)”love, and inspiration”change happens…”change for the better”Inspiration breeds change…”Positive change”… 

A Love Supreme

Dedicated to my mom….

a love supreme

 

a little index finger curled softly around 

yours

softly embraced

with your loving look

gazing

never hesitating

to freely flow

and sow

the seeds of love

that feed the seeds of compassion

that feed the soul.

there were cries, stubborn-piscean born tantrums,

woe

but you

nurtured it all

to flourish into an all-giving, all-encompassing

life force.

 

but force it was never, it was

merely but supremely

your love,

your strength,

your care

that triumphed and reflected from

moments of

locked eyes, warm embraces, silly faces…

innocence meeting experience

trying to make some sense

of what you shared 

Poetry’s Power

“Why don’t you try to remember a time that you felt violated before you read it? That might put you in the right frame of mind and soul for a good reading,” she suggested on the other end of the phone.

I thought back to the countless times that I had been groped, touched by unfamiliar and familiar men (and women, a few times), alike during the past few years. One incident in particular seemed to stick out – two and a half years ago, I was walking down Durant towards downtown Berkeley during my lunch time, talking to my mom on the phone, when a random guy clad in a white T, leisurely riding his bicycle, neared my occupied self and grabbed my right butt cheek!  My first reaction was to jump and just say a “WHAT THE FUCK?!” out loud, but then I was quickly silenced because I remembered who was on the line.  I was silent and just watched homie bike down the street.  My mom, asking me random particulars of my day, and reminding me to go to the grocery store when I got home later that day, noticed my silence, and asked “Meghu, tu kahaan ghum ho gayi, phir se?”  I replied “I’m here Mom.” And I just stared at the guy going down, not doing anything or saying anything because I was scared and moreso revolted at his nerve to do such a thing. I knew if I told my mom about what happened, she’d unnecessarily worry, and jet out to Berkeley and be the first one to say, “Kya bathameezi oos ne kiya.   Main abhi aathi hoon, dandaa ke saath.  Police ko call kar.”  She never fails to crack me up.  But I didn’t do any of that, I just stared, and came back to work and told my co-worker and good friend Mike, about what had just happened. 

Anyway, I digress. I told Reena that putting myself in that frame of mind was a good idea, but the experience of rape is still foreign to me, so I don’t know if I could do it correctly.

“Do you want to try reading it to me?” she asked.  

I didn’t hesitate for a second and said “OK!”

 I tried reading your poem, A-rod, and I remember how passionately you had delivered it, because it was so personal to you, but I couldn’t do it.  I started reading it to Reena over the phone, line flowing into lines, but I choked and then let out a little nervous laugh.  It’s funny how laughter is a natural response to dealing, confronting something so immense, so incomprehensible, so deep.  I read through the rest of it, the juxtaposition of hate, love, fuck, usurption of something so precious to you…but it wasn’t the same. 

I wanted to read it for you, because you’re a close, special friend.  But I think only you can convey it as forcefully as you advised it to be conveyed.  I’m so happy that you’ve emerged so strong from this experience, and that you are really following your dreams.  You inspire and I admire and am so happy that you’re doing the work you’re doing during your six month stint in India. 

That evening, two days ago, after that reading to Reena, I thought about it some more and didn’t feel I could do it because, honestly, after the Vipassana meditation course, I don’t think I can be as forceful as the poem requires, as forceful as the experience was for you.  Vipassana has made me so soft A-Rod.   So so so soo-ft, even moreso than before.  I tried to get angry but it wasn’t working.  The anger has subsided considerably (not entirely, though), and I just couldn’t work that emotion.  C. called right after I was done speaking with Reena, and the conversation again veered to…

“Hey kid, what you up to?” he asks, while in his cab ride back home to SOMA. 

“Not much, was just reciting a poem to my friend when you first called, but I don’t think I can do it.”

“Really? What’s it about?” he asks.

“It’s about a friend’s experience with rape. I think I’m in too light of a mood to even think about it right now.”  I attempted to deflect.

“Do you want to read it to me?”  he asks.

“No not really.” I say.

“You sure? I could give you some constructive criticism.” 

“Yea, it’s all good but thanks for offering.”

So I tried to change the subject, asking him how his case was going after all these late nights, how the trial went in Chitown, and even asked if his cabbie let him sit in the front, but he somehow knew it was still on my mind.

The next morning on Gchat, he messages, “Kiddo, how’s the poem coming along?”

“It’s aite.” End of story.  But before the real end, a poem I wrote today:

Blurred Lines

when no and yes collide

how do you decide

when to let go

how do you let time abide

by its click clocks to make you stop

when all that it’s making you do is

recall that union of love meeting love

so close to the whispers of a pure dove

how is

when is

holding on to

everything that unsettles 

your impermanence

your concept of you

going to place those hands 

together again

to make you stop

and

trust?