Ready to let go

 December 24, 2020

 

It’s a strange kind of morning. Dark and cloudy but still. The last few mornings, winds have banged doors shut and blown in all kinds of stuff into the apartment. I have found unpleasant bits I’d rather keep outside on the living room floor. But the breeze has felt good to my body and head. Like it is blowing through and clearing, sloughing, shaking free deeply lodged toxins. So I have kept the windows wide open.

 

I woke this morning and felt in my body that slight lightness that I have become aware of over this week. My efforts to map the year have shifted something. I drank tea and lowered myself into the lightness. It felt like sinking into a warm bubbly bath of hope and confidence. I got out a sheet of paper and drew a month wise map of this year.

 

January had begun with JNU violence. I travelled to India. It was a hectic and abundant whirlwind of work, friends and training. Then back here in February I felt myself really settling into the year. Clearing a 1000 emails related to financial stuff, that my sister had let build-up, was the focus of the month. Meanwhile Delhi elections with all the hate speech — Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma, Adityanath, Shah, Modi — unfolded against the hope of Shaheen Baug and of the student protests. March I finished, completely finished, Boiling Frogs and sent out a few queries. Back in Delhi violence had broken out and the bias nature of the Delhi Police’s investigations and arrests shock-numbed me. The Madhya Pradesh Govt toppled. Yes, the first three months were busy, profuse, intense. 

 

The next three months were a sudden drop into the emptiness of a deep chasm. I followed the stories of the migrants walking in India. I didn’t hear back from anyone about my query. I wrote one story that got published but mostly I couldn’t read or write, and like the protagonist of the one story I wrote I paced my apartment while I offered up my study to the spouse who worked from home. A month later he insisted I take it back but I still couldn’t do any meaningful work. Drawing and online karate and self-training sustained me through this churning time. 

 

Over the next quarter I did taxes for me, my sis, mum and daughter. I tried and failed to sort out financial stuff, got deeply depressed and didn’t know how to pull out of it. A friend asked me if I was suicidal. The first rumblings against the Farmers Bill were voiced. We trained outdoors and then finally in small groups in the dojo. Online gasshukus were offered. I still couldn’t read or write (though I found this blog and began writing here), and the net around me felt tighter, the fog thicker and heavier and utterly hopeless.

 

Efforts to throw off the fog in the last quarter of 2020 led to moments of seeing. Tata Lit Fest and before that Singapore Writers Fest, probably inspired me to commit and sort of do nano. I began reading again. The last online Gassuku with Sensei Nakamura at the odd hour of 3-6 am felt impossible but I knew my passion for learning anew. I did two tonglen meditations for my sister who’s had a difficult year caring for my mum by herself. She had developed severe body symptoms because of the stress and I was worried. Whenever I have done tonglens for someone specific I have felt in my body the most severe body symptoms the person was experiencing while the person had felt the same easing. I got quite sick but she got better. The farmers poured to the borders of Delhi and that astonishing sight completely lifted me out of myself.

 

The year was more than a leaden wasteland with few bubbles of energy. I feel the shape of it, and I could still look for and find the details of it. But I am now done with going back and digging at it to mine the gems of meaning. I did a meditation this morning where I drew into myself the healing earth and ‘heaven’ energies. I visualised them dissolving the toxins within me. I feel poised to take that leap into the dark — despite the vaccine the year feels uncertain and unplannable — of 2021. E.L. Doctorow said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' There are patches of life too which can only be navigated this way.

Wasteland

 December 15, 2020

 

I’ve been trying to find the shape, the image, the form of my 2020. Wasteland is what comes to mind. But for a while I haven’t been able to describe it further. I’ve had years that felt like wastelands before too – a nuclear wasteland, a war torn wasteland, an environmental disaster, or even simply an arid desert. None of these describe this year. All of them have more character, dynamism and potential than this year has been. 

 

So today, I began drawing the wasteland— a semi-urban area, small badly maintained buildings, litter strewn around, no people, rocky ground with a very thin layer of top soil. I drew a frame around it and within a stick figure going in circles, figures of eight, straight lines, zig-zags. Sometimes ambling, sometimes running — but confined within it, unable to leave the picture. 

 

Yes, this is the image of this year for me. And yes, I haven’t been able to leave the frame or grow anything, or put down roots of any kind because of the hard ground. It has been barren and devoid of hopes, of life. 

 

The picture reminded me of my Saturday morning walk to our terrace dojo at the Waterloo Centre. I get off at the SMU bus-stop, I cross the pristine lawn where a smattering of early risers are doing Tai-chi or stretching and doing light exercises, sometimes a little girl is holding her parents hands and taking gleeful steps, someone is jogging, or people are just sitting around chatting. I cross Bras Basah street and the walk on Waterloo street is different. Not many people, small lost-seeming buildings, messy sidewalks, and the centre itself needing maintenance (which I think it is getting). Our space, with stained dusty tiles, at first makes me sigh and say, ‘anywhere but here.’ Then we start training and around me/us I feel a bubble of strong, happy joy that lifts me above the wasteland.

 

In the wasteland of this year karate has been the only bubble of clean sanity, of hope and renewal. Strangely covid has not taken karate away, but instead made online trainings with senior Sensei’s available. Trainings that rejuvenate, inspire and make happy the dull, everyday-ness of this year. Something to look back on with pleasure. 

 

Thinking further I see the external and internal factors that kept me within the frame. I see that I need more than a bubble that bursts, once I finish training, and drops me back into that frame, to keep going. I need to find ways to expand the frame, to leave it, and perhaps to grow something even on rocky ground. 

 

The year hasn’t been an hibernation. A hibernation for me implies a time of rest and integration with new life after. This year has been devoid of that feeling. It has been a meaningless wandering through the same landscape, fighting fires repeatedly. It has been these constant fires also that have prevented still contemplation and growth. I’ve got into the habit of waking, and first fighting fires, making sure they are out for the moment, before trying to do the work my body and soul call. But the fires exhaust me and all I want to do after is rest. Maybe the wiser strategy would be to let the fires burn and do the work first. 

Tempest at the end of 2020

 December 11, 2020

Things happened since Monday that made me lose my peace. I felt the structures I had carefully built through November fly apart, while I tried desperately to hold them together — unsuccessfully. It got worse on Wednesday after an unfortunate interaction with the spouse and then an inner darkness broke loose. I tried to not externalize it but by Thursday I felt I just wanted to claw my head and my gut apart and release that pressure that was threatening to detonate a bomb within. I couldn’t bear that feeling.

It got worse as the day proceeded and even a stint on the treadmill did nothing to calm me. I did explode at the spouse for something that perhaps needed challenging, though not in the way I had done. I forced myself to go collect my blood report and see the doctor. I even bought the inks and notebooks I had planned to do, but without any joy. Later at home, I refrained from opening that gorgeous Malbec as I was worried that if I opened it, I might drink it all, but I did binge watch Netflix till midnight. I filled my waterman with one of my new inks and I immediately hated the colour, regretted the purchase, and wanted to fling the bottle at the wall. It took all of my remaining control to refrain from doing that. 

 I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I wanted someone to make it better and was angry that nobody could.

 I fell asleep and woke feeling drained, exhausted, limp and peeled raw.

 But I could finally identify the process I was going through. Loss and grief. Specifically a 9-stage grief process —

• Hope —Tormented Hope.
• Anxiety —Anguished Apprehension.
• Depression —Angst-Ridden Sadness.
• Denial —Confused Rejection.
• Pain and Guilt —Agonizing Self-Blame.
• Anger and Bargaining —Bitter Resentment.
• Acceptance —Practical Relief.
• Depression —Second Round of Sadness.
• Reverie and Revival — Renaissance.

—  And I had woken this morning to acceptance. Also the grey ink wasn't as terrible as it had been last night.

 I was/am grieving many things but mostly I realise the loss of 2020. As I slipped into December I felt an urgency to make the year feel meaningful. To end it with having something concrete to show for the year which had disrupted every hope and plan I  — and many or most of us — had made for it. For me that last hope took the shape of a draft of the book I had begun working on in November, but which had stalled completely. 

 This year has been hard. Harder for many others than it has been for me. I have been listening to others talk about the difficulties about this year — from getting medical appointments for what would be emergencies at any other time (yet not in these covid times — someone told me that they were only getting an appt to fix a broken molar in march), to losing work as free lancers and worrying about survival. 

 I don’t know how many times I had hoped that covid would magically ebb, that the virus would have had enough of us and leave, and we could all emerge from devastation. I also remember the times I felt overwhelming anxiety that it would never be done with us. I saw many who managed to negotiate this time so much better than I did and I felt bitter resentment. I blamed myself and others for my failures. And I bounced between these stages not even realising that I was until they amplified themselves over the last two days and broke to something akin to relief this morning. Relief of recognition perhaps? 

 I also saw that the book I tried to work on in November — the story of a twin who loses her brother — is my attempt at working out some of the loss I feel about losing mine, not to death but to a painful separation. I am stuck in the state of denial and numbness around that. I can’t write that book till I try to work through the processes of grief around this or perhaps allow myself to use the book to feel them fully. 

 I don’t know how the next weeks will unfold. I know I have been through a tempest that tore apart some veil within that clouded my ability to know. I still feel the other states — anger, shame, anxiety, depression — along my edges, though I am at a temporary state of relief. I hope the knowing of what is going on will help me be gentle with myself at this year-end. 

 I don’t know if others are feeling such states and would love to hear how your year has been. 

Farmers Bandh December 2020

 December 8, 2020

 

I’m watching the farmer’s bandh during work breaks. I feel a swell of pride at how well organised the farmers are. I feel proud at the peaceful nature of their protest despite provocation of water canons, tear gas, barbed wire, and being demonized by right wing media. Today too though they have stopped all traffic, ambulances and health services are let through smoothly. I also feel waves of fear when I see the unfolding story.

 

Supporters of the Modi government have been saying that the farmers are being misled by political opposition, but when I hear the farmer unions speak, they seem clear about the laws and how they are likely to affect them. They have been called rigid by supporters of Modi. The government is now saying they will amend the laws, but the farmers want them repealed, then hold new talks where the farmers can provide inputs. The farmers initially were happy to have them amended, some securities added etc. That was months ago. But they were ignored till they began marching to the capital. Now they are angry and want nothing less. 

 

The ruling BJP launched a counter-attack against the opposition (and the bandh) yesterday, accusing them of engineering the protests for political gains. The famers have categorically denied this. They refuse to let any parties speak on their platforms. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Congress, when it was in power, was in favour of privatising the agriculture sector but was now opposing the move to score brownie points with farmers - who represent a hugely powerful voting group. This may be true. Political parties switch sides. Old BJP stalwarts like Sushma Swaraj and Jaitley said the same things, when they were the opposition, that the opposition is saying now. But if the congress had already proposed these reforms then they aren’t as revolutionary as the BJP have been claiming, are they? Also farmers did not protest then but they are now. This is the issue that needs to be dealt with instead of bringing up history.

There are interesting stats about how many laws have been sent to parliamentary committees in the last several parliamentary sessions. These committees give parliament and public to give their opinions about proposed laws etc. The number of bills sent to these in 2014-2019 were 25% - down from about 80% in the previous session. The number sent to committees in the present session is zero. In a democracy this is shocking.

The government is stalling. They haven’t really proposed any amendments. Meanwhile they are trying to divide the protestors and defuse this protest. The Haryana famers have caved. A law student has filed a PIL to remove the farmers from the borders and send them to the place the govt had offered them. A place far from anywhere where their presence will become invisible and one that they feel will be an open jail. I don’t know what will happen. I really hope the farmers can stand together and get what they deserve. 

 It is also scary to see so many of them together during these covid times. There are old people, women and children also there. It is wrenching to see the children studying while sitting-in at the borders of Delhi. I pray for their health. 

 

The PM hasn’t spoken to them though they have been camped out in the cold for 13 days. He has made appearances on TV and claimed they are misguided and have nothing to fear. He will be laying the foundation stone for the new parliament building on the 10^th. He has time to do this. There are pleas in the supreme court that oppose the building of this Central Vista. Despite these pleas which haven’t been ruled on the center wants to lay the stones. And unbelievably so, to me, the court has allowed this move. 

 

I am hearing a story that the CM of Delhi has been placed on house arrest and MLA’s going to meet him have been beaten up. The police have denied it. I want to stay here and watch this day unfold. I want to know what is going on. My mind and spirit are there but I have to take my body to a meeting. I feel a lot about this and wanted to write despite having just a bit of time.

A sipper for Father Stan!

 November 30, 2020

 

It is the last day of November and time to put nano behind. I think I have clocked in a mere 30,000 words and am still floundering with the story, so can’t call it a success. Yet I am satisfied. I wrote 20,000 words in the first two weeks which reassured me that I could still do it. And the writing provided further thought on the things haunting me and which I wanted to think and write about. 

 

Two or three of these things are the following — farmer protests in India, the Stan Swamy sipper and straw story, and the love-jihad bullshit. But not just these of course. The barely reported J and K elections, where BJP candidates roamed around campaigning, but the opposition was prevented from doing the same for security reasons, is also is on my mind but since it is barely reported about I find it hard to find news around it. 

 

I am interested in hearing the different voices around the issues that pre-occupy me. The sweeping scapes of the farmers moving and being stopped at borders like they were doing something illegal are surreal. The farmers seem clear enough about why the new laws are not in their favour. But they have been thwarted in their quest to negotiate them and in this last march to the capital they have been tear gassed, water cannoned, met with trenches and barbed wire, as well as offered a place to protest far from anywhere and which they see as an open jail. The Delhi Police did ask the Delhi government to allow Delhi stadiums to be used to jail the farmers so it makes sense that they would react this way to Amit Shah’s condition for talks. The BJP asks why it is only farmers of opposition states who are protesting? They have been incited by the opposition and they are possibly Khalistani’s, they say. They are blamed for blocking trains and national highways and inconveniencing citizens. They are patronized and treated as idiots who do not think for themselves. These same people who grow our food and due to whose efforts, the GDP is not more negative than it is. Meanwhile Mr Modi as if oblivious to all that is going on said, in his maan-ki-baat, that these reforms had opened opportunities for the farmers and met their long-pending demands. The protesting farmers I believe said, ‘Who asked for this, we didn’t?’ I won’t be surprised if soon some might be booked under UAPA, the BJP’s favourite weapon since 2018, and the narrative again made favourable for the BJP.

 

Which brings me to Stan Swamy. 83-year-old man with Parkinson’s who was booked under UAPA and jailed. His ‘trending’ story begins with him submitting an application for a straw and sipper, as he is unable to drink without these, on November 6^th. The NIA (National Investigation Agency) requested 20 days to reply to it. Now at the end of November the 473-word reply says that the NIA never confiscated the straw and sipper and this application is mischievous. It says it is the prison authorities who should be looking out for this and the NIA have nothing to do with it. It took them this long to say this, sigh. Inefficiency or just malice? But not new this attempt by National agencies to paint Maharashtra institutions in a bad light, is it? Still sore about not being in power there. And last I read about this story is that the sipper and straw have been provided. The BJP can now say you activists are naughty for spreading false stories. And further, activists should be ashamed for making noise about this, but not protesting the jailing and mistreatment of Arnab Goswami. Nothing new about being told whom and what to protest, right?

 

But I hope that really Stan Swamy has his straw and sipper and warm clothes. For in these Kafkaesque twists and turns it is impossible to know what the real story is now? And shouldn’t we all just keep very quiet till we know what it is? Familiar this is too. Flood the space with so many narratives that one is kept busy untangling the threads to find what could be the truth. Typical BJP SOP. A Singaporean friend suggested that we send the NIA a straw and sipper. I think it’s a fab idea. Shall we flood the NIA and the jail with them?

 

After writing this I am much too tired to write about love-jihad. The saffron face of Adityanath stirring this up keeps spooking me in odd moments though. That man is a menace to India. 

 

I am interested in the rise of the BJP, in its new face with the Modi-Shah couple, with the way it can spin narratives, and how Modi magic has mesmerized even intelligent people I know. How so many are willing to give up a secular and wide identity for a narrow Hindu nationalistic one. I think these will find their way into my story, set between 1970 and the present. I am reading a lot of papers on the BJP, and history of this time. It all is fascinating. I also read a book called the ‘Lucifer Effect’ which discusses how systems turn ordinary people into torturers and murderers. It starts with the Stanford Prison Experiment and talks about Nazi’s, Rwanda and other genocides and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. It is scary how quickly people can turn into their darkest possible identities when acted upon by system forces. I worry for India sometimes.

 

I have a plan for December. I have given myself permission to spend two weeks reading whatever I want to in all the spare time I have. Then I hope mid-December I might see more of the story I have begun to explore and start to write it again.

Nano progress - 3

 November 19, 2020

 

This morning I woke wanting a different kind of day from the one I was supposed to follow. Thursday is the one day of the week with nothing planned, the day when I can catch up on the nano word deficits — and that was indeed the plan. But as if to give me what I wanted, a different day, a few unexpected stresses cropped up this morning. A part of me gleefully declared that nobody could be blamed for being distracted or not writing with so much going on, and I gave myself up to addressing the problems that had cropped up. Besides these issues and dynamics were fodder for the book I convinced myself. 

 

Many hours later I feel drained and guilty. And not guilty too. I did need a break from relentless writing, with my red-tinged, burning eyes so close to my words that I couldn’t see the whole picture. And I do need to see it, particularly because though I have two stories I want to write I don’t know whether they fit together or whether I am forcing them together. Without looking up, looking away, seeing askance even, I couldn't know, could I? And being 25,000 words into the story I needed to before wasting more days or energy on the story.

 

An inner critic scoffs. Lazy, that’s what you are, it says. You don’t have the stamina to do the month of writing. Ya, ya, I’ve heard you say that you’ve done it before. But you don’t have it now, do you? You are a quitter.

 

And part of me hangs my head in shame. I am a quitter, it agrees.

 

I can tie my mind up in knots for hours debating both sides of this —

One needs distance to craft the story well.

Writing is more than mere spewing of words for days on end.

                                                                                                You are a quitter. 

                                                                                                You don’t have it anymore. 

— for I do believe both sides of this issue, but I need to choose. I need to do one thing and forever lose the chance to do the other. I can keep writing and risk having to throw almost all of it away, and lose ten more days of this month, days I can never get back, but if I do this I will prove that I still have the stamina to do it. Or I can examine what I have and decide its value, lose a writing day or two and not end up anywhere close to the 50,000 target.

 

25,000 words in I do need to decide if it is worth diving further in. And it is easier to just wake up and keep typing for days on end than to look at the work objectively and see its worth, or lack of. 

                                                                                                You are a quitter.

Nano is useful, nano is good. But I need to do my own version of nano.

                                                                                                You are a quitter.

I need to read some things too before continuing. I need some history and I need some group psychology. I need to read Shakespeare and learn about demagogues.

                                                                                                 Mere excuses to quit.

 

I was telling a friend yesterday about this. Being an artist he agreed that I needed to step out and see things. He also said to stay with the stories and not give up on fitting the two together. That some part of me knew they did fit, and it would be hard work to make them fit effortlessly but subtly. 

 

It is 3:22 pm. I haven’t done any writing on 'unnamed'. I have solved some problems, drunk cups of tea and eaten a cookie or two. But my head hurts — like it is overloaded. I know that whatever else I am doing, I am also thinking of the two stories and the amount of research and reading I might need to do to continue writing and blending them smoothly. It’s not what I know how to do yet. 

Gym break overdue. 

 

nano progess — 2

 November 12, 2020

 

I’ve missed the blog. I still don’t understand the purpose of writing here, but it holds something in me steady when I feel adrift. I’m glad I found it in the initial days of the pandemic where it helped me examine the degree of ‘un-normalness’ I felt, which in turn helped me live the best I could with it.

 

 I’ve been sprint writing for nano on weekdays, but I am already 4500 words behind. I am questioning my commitment to continuing. The first week was perfect. I managed 11,600 of my 12,500 goal. It was heady to rediscover, after the too long dry spell, that I could sit at a desk and the words would appear on the page. The week one sprint served its purpose to get back into the flow of writing and also have a story arc magically reveal itself. Characters were added from the initial central three to five more friends and I realised that one of the threads I wanted to explore was friendship. But once the story arc was there, I felt a need to step back, to examine the parts and see what really wanted to be said. I started asking myself if quantity was the goal or quality. That wasn’t it better now to try to shape up some scenes and locations and dig deeper into the feeling life of the characters and the world they lived in. I wondered if just trying to get the words out would fulfil those things. 

 

I suppose with those questions in mind week 2 has been slower. I’ve started a new file to explore feeling states and my own enduring friendships. I found that there were two friendships that I have stayed connected to, or re-connected to after a break, no matter where in the world I or the others were. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the first time I met both was in a dream group. I say not surprisingly because most of us in the dream group were there to seriously understand ourselves, to dig and drill and find the essence of us. Most of us were willing to sit in that fish bowl with mirrors on all sides and accept all facets of ourselves. Remembering the details of how I met them brought a smile and a feeling of warmth, and I called the one I had not been in contact with for a while, immediately. I found her in a state of lostness for someone in her family, an elderly and so high risk person, had been diagnosed with covid. It was good to be with her in that moment of vulnerability. This friendship had grown through the most painful and vulnerable part of both our lives. 

 

The other I maintain a regular email connection with. She is someone who I became friends with because of working together on a shared passion, that of trying to create a world that accepts all its diversity, but the personal connection only grew because of the need of seeing ‘the other’ within ourselves. One of the criteria of an enduring friendship definitely is this desire to have friends who will show me the parts of me I cannot see, and in turn have a need to see those parts in themselves. Another is to take whatever the friendship throws up and be curious about what it is saying about ourselves. 

 

Exploring these connections may be a distraction or may be a necessary part of understanding the book that wants to be written. Meanwhile another distraction also appeared. A friend told me about Velaquez’s painting Las Meninas. I looked at the painting and I couldn’t stop looking, It's a painting that still mystifies, which many have written about. I googled and read some of what has been written but it was not enough to explain the feelings and questions it evoked in me. I still am exploring those, but the feeling, the desire to create something like this painting pulls me into facing my deepest fears that I am not adequate. 

 

I may indeed be inadequate. I may indeed fail, but giving up on trying is not an option. 

Nano progress — 1

 November 4, 2020

 

So, I began nano without really knowing too much about my story or having a plan. I saw on some writing groups I am in, how writers plan for nano. They have their characters fleshed out and have an outline of what they will write daily. Chapter plans etc. all ready. I had none. Not even a beginning, a story arc, POV — I only knew the story would feature these two women. I also knew I couldn’t write on weekends so would have to write 2,500 words a day during the week to finish the 50,000 words. 

 

I started a new word file on Monday morning and named it unnamed. I took a leap of faith and began typing. I wrote 700 words that must have come from somewhere in the unconscious where this story had been brewing. The POV was first person. Day 1, day 2 and day 3 are now done. I have 7,500 words. I have a vague story arc and know vaguely the emotions that will govern certain parts of the story. The first 700 words showed that the narrator has a difficult decision to make but I don’t yet know what she will do. 

 

It is magical though how more characters emerged that I hadn’t thought about at all. School friends, with entangled relationships that go through closeness and distance. I guess besides the main themes of money and power, I am writing about friendship.

 

Sometimes I feel despite having lived 60 years on this earth I don’t really know much about friendships. Where do we learn about them? In school, through books we read, or films we see, or living through authentic friendships or unpleasant ones too? I don’t know why but there are still so many questions about what makes a friendship good or bad or a friendship at all. Does one have rules about how to negotiate friendships or does one use their instincts and their pulls towards people? How does one negotiate those edges of getting closer, revealing more, trusting? How does one talk about those times when one feels let down, betrayed, forgotten? I tend to plunge in and then use my instincts. I try to express the range of feelings I have about the friendship in a meta way, but I have been wrong at times about whom to trust and not been able to express some feelings at times when I fear that the friendship, or perhaps the person, is not strong enough to take it. 

 

I am also laughing at myself right now, that once I finished my 2500 words for the day, to take a break from the writing, I decided to write a blog post. Really funny, isn’t it? I used to watch these films about students at Dance Academies. I guess I love watching movement and rhythm. I always wondered why their way of relaxing after a grueling day of dance was going to a bar and dancing some more or taking a class of a more contemporary or ‘looser’ form of dancing. Now I am doing something similar. 

 

But I will read a bit now — a war novel that I am halfway through — and then take myself to the gym. The US election coverage is open on one of my tabs. I want to write a short note weekly about my progress at nano. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up this word flow or I will finish the month. But right now it feels like grace acting in my life that I have this opportunity to just write for a month. Lucky I do feel. 

Ideas emerging

 October 27, 2020

 

Just four days to nano, to November. I'm not anywhere close to making a decision about which story to try to write. Added to the list of the two ideas I already had, is a third now – memory-essays about my journey in karate so far. That would be the easiest perhaps as it is real, it happened and all I have to do is remember, write, reflect, write. Fiction needs characters and a plot from nothing, perhaps not nothing – perhaps from a seed of something felt, experienced, believed, remembered.

 

One story, the one about friends seeking psycho-spiritual knowledge but choosing different paths which leads to a strain on their relationship feels more like a short story right now. But for the other characters and strands are emerging. Different types of power, money and lack of, greed, harmony or lack of, are the threads. I see them in the desires of the two main characters —one wanting power and wealth at all costs. The other willing to give them up for relationship and harmony. I see them in the Macro they are situated in — political power, control and wealth at the cost of peace, equality, freedom etc. The supporting cast of characters — a father, a maid, a mother, a friend, are also becoming more than mere outlines. Words they might say, the way they might look, the attitudes and beliefs they might have are clarifying. But can I find the sequence of events and begin the draft in four days? Still not sure. 

 

Yet this feeling, of something appearing out of nowhere, a fleeting wisp of an idea that flashed in the corner of my eye but was gone though I quickly turned my head to catch it, leaving me feeling limp and hopeless on Friday, is finally moving to the centre of my vision — that feeling is breathlessly up-lifting. Phew, what a mouthful of a sentence. Even I lost track of the beginning before I got to the end of it! This idea-let is still amorphous and fragile but now I can hope that it will settle into something more if I leave it suspended for a few more days in the solution I’ve created in my mind with increasingly desperate ruminations, over endless cups of tea, in the last ten days. Sigh. I will be drinking more cups of tea in the next days for sure. 

 

Not even sure I will have the time this November as the schedule is suddenly speeding up. I'm nervous, thinking of how the interaction with the outer world might increase next month after all the fairly solitary time. A part of me is wanting more action, activity, mingling. I want to be outdoors without a mask, on a flight without a mask, walking the streets without a mask, discussing things without a mask. But the mask is here to stay for a quite a while yet, so unsure where I will be next month.

 

I decided to buy another drawing course on Udemy. They had a sale. The two I bought in the beginning of the pandemic helped me relax and deal with the burgeoning uncertainties, and I improved my drawing skills a bit, though it was frustrating because I couldn’t always go outdoors and practice like the instructors suggested we do. My first lesson in the new one was shading using nine different pencil values. It felt so soothing to do that. Pencil on paper. I like the B pencils the best – 3B, 4B and even 6B. 

 

But November will be here so soon. Bihar elections are heating up, more chaos will follow. Then it will be December and then 2020 will be over. I feel it was just January a week ago. Do you feel that? Interested in what the end of year reflection I do will be like. Hmm…

Building a new practice

 October 20, 2020

 

I’ve been trying desperately to resurrect a serious writing practice, and revive one of my manuscripts — the one I feel very passionately about. Neither is going very well. 

 

Forming of the writing habit is being resisted forcefully. Any plan, schedule, structure I build up is sucked away daily like a spider-web by a vacuum cleaner. Things I think would take an hour take twice as much, and I wonder if I have slowed down so much or lost the ability to estimate times for projects. Besides that, phone calls, other emergency tasks, noisy renovations in the flat above, the haze that clogs my nostrils, and the news that just needs to be heard… basically anything, tears down any timetable I build. Last week I had to, just had to, empty, clean and re-organise two of the bookshelves I mainly keep my books on. Though if I am honest, I have to admit that my books have occupied all the bookshelves in the apartment. I don’t know if this is why the spouse only reads ebooks now… hmm…

 

As for the manuscript — like anything one has worked on for a while, three years on and off in this case (ya, a lot of interruption — two deaths in the family, rescuing a feral cat, daughters marriage, ill-health, and surgery) is hard to revise. I just can’t get into a beginner’s mind state, or simply a new reader’s state, and dispassionately look at the work. What exists, the way it exists, has too strong an impression in my body and mind. Other eyes are definitely needed here. Sometimes I almost want to give up and move on to another piece of writing, which would be easier, fresher etc. etc. etc. Yet the pull to complete and put this one out into the world is an obstacle to new thought. Or so it is with me and this book. 

 

I worked longer over my first books. A fantasy with a 35-year-old female protagonist. I have a completed book 1 and a draft for book 2. It was the series I learnt how to write with. It taught me how to create multi-dimensional characters, build plot, conflict, dialogue, write immersive description etc. Each time I got stuck with one of these aspects of novel writing I took a course or read a craft book. So I wrote those books over five years. But when book 1 was rejected about 21 times, often for having a protagonist older than 16 or 18, I was able to move one. The current book, about the devastating impact of therapeutic abuse is more important to me. It is an issue that is not yet being discussed much, and I really want to get the book out. I hope it starts conversations around this problem. Oh Universe, are you listening?

 

I so want to do Nanowrimo and churn out a new draft this year. Despite how my book on therapeutic abuse occupies my mind I have two ideas I might want to explore. Both are about relationship — one explores a manipulative relationship too, but between equals, and the other friends seeking spiritual wholeness but following very different paths, and the clashes between them. Both set within the current political climate of India. Neither seems to be a book length idea though, so I don’t know. I am running out of time to finish the prep to start nano. 

 

I had a conversation with a writing coach and talked about these two pulls — to keep working on the current manuscript till it finds a way out and pottering with new ideas. She suggested I do both and I liked that. I decided to start my writing day (two days a week right now) with the revision and in the afternoon have fun with new ideas. Somehow it hasn’t worked. I seem to like binging on one thing, but also feel guilty just faffing with new ideas unless I have some ‘actual work’ done first, and sometimes I struggle to find ways to work on the revision. So I do nothing. 

 

The coach also suggested I tie my practice with my already present, fairly disciplined, karate training. She thought that an existing, focused and regular, practice would help built the new. Well, all it has done so far is mess up my karate practice. 

 

A week or two ago a friend posted a stairway on FB. Each step had a person with a different level of determination, or lack of, for a task. I was on step 3. I want to do it but… New habits are hard to form, I guess. I need to keep going one step up at a time — though my personality is more the kind to speed up the stairs, yet age related slowing makes me the tortoise in this race with myself.  

Another rant

 October 17, 2020

 

It’s a rare Saturday morning at home and I’m trying to re-discover the fine art of going nowhere. Because really there is nowhere to go. It’s an extremely hot day, with hazy air, but all the construction noise has quieted, I have eaten a yummy kimchi omelette, and I feel indulged.

 

I watched another debate about the withdrawal of the Tanishq ad. These debate shows are frustrating. The same stuff is bandied around and questions that could take the issues deeper are not asked. Though even just debating the issues to a depth on a tv show feels pointless in the current political climate when values are determined by mass trolling. But there were a couple of points made that went past without much unpacking that still linger for me. 

 

The first was about cancel culture. The point made was that liberals, along with the help of corporations, have been getting away too long with cancel culture. Their own bhasmasura (demon who had been granted the power to turn anyone he touched on the head to ashes) has now come back to haunt them as social media has allowed the masses to voice their opinions. His point being that at first only the liberals, a very small minority, had voices – has this really been the case? And now everyone does, and we finally hear the dissenting voices, those dissenting against the liberal viewpoints he meant. Of course, he didn’t say that this army of trolls has been deliberately created by think tanks and IT cells to support the ruling BJP. He didn’t say that the PM and HM follow these accounts. 

 

In any case, I didn’t understand what he was saying. Mainly because I don’t get how this ad supports cancel culture? I mean the ruling party does propagate communal hatred, but I don’t get how the ad was shaming that? Unfortunately nobody probed this, or maybe everyone understood his point?

 

And the second point in the debate was made by a man who said, if the ad had shown both sides then it would have been ok. The trolls wouldn’t have been upset then. At first, I didn’t get this either. What both sides? As he spoke further, I understood he meant communal tension was the other side that should have been shown. It is a reality in India and the world.

 

So really, are ads now supposed to show communal hatred? Are products to be sold through creating disharmony? Or am I totally missing what he meant?

 

But if all of us who talk about communal harmony have to also show the other side then shouldn’t those who talk about communal hatred show the other side too? Shouldn’t the BJP besides calling Muslims, infiltrators, illegal immigrants, terrorists etc. also call them peaceful, loyal citizens of India and more.

 

Though, this insistence on what else we liberals should protest is not new. Whenever we raise our voices about anything the ‘whataboutery’ starts. 

 

Of course, BJP followers — ones who normally post a fair bit about political issues — have remained silent on this, as they have on the absurd Ayodhya verdict, on the indignity of Hathras, lawlessness in UP, the mess of the economy. Instead they still post about Sushant Singh Rajput, about music or food, and other less significant things. Their silence on these issues helps the strong voices of the trollers in establishing a new India. 

Apologise for being secular.

 October 15, 2020

 

I feel like I am constantly working to contain anger. Unexpressed anger is exhausting, so I am tired all the time. I also wake with free floating anxiety and fear, disproportionate to what is actually going on in my life. I think I am hitting the ‘second wave’ of covid internally. It is about the uncertainty of things because of covid changes in the world and not knowing when it will end. When covid first came on the scene I felt unusually stressed and unable to work. Then I adjusted but I had placed a time stamp on it internally. I thought after 6 months things would be different or at least we would know more. But scientists still seem to be floundering and we don’t know how long we will be living under restrictions. 

 

The anger is about India and the goons running India. It is also about the people who support these goons. It is mostly about how both the goons and their supporters keep calling India a democracy. So much is going on in India but the same people who constantly posted about Sushant Singh Rajput, or comment on racism in the US, and Trump’s rightwing populism won’t speak about the atrocities at Hathras. The shutting down of democratic procedures and the disrespect of human life there. Yes, people have a right to talk and comment on whatever they choose, and they choose to be silent on these matters. It says something about the kind of person you are, who you choose to be, doesn’t it? 

 

The latest thing that is bugging me is the Tanishq jewelry ad and the saga around that. It was an ad about a pre-birth ceremony for a pregnant Hindu woman married into a Muslim household. There are many messages from that ad that I don’t particularly love but it is a sweet ad that promotes inter-religious mingling and celebration of adopting each other’s customs. Of course the rightwing goons had a problem with this ad. It was heavily trolled, employers of the company received threats, and the company decided to withdraw the ad. Even after it was withdrawn a goon went into a Tanishq shop in Gujarat and demanded an apology from the owner. He also demanded that the apology should go viral. The apology was for making a secular ad which hurt the sentiments of Hindus. Seculars have been called sickulars for quite a while now. The apology was also posted outside the shop. The police downplayed the threat saying that there was no physical threat just a request. BFS!

 

What can I say except Trolls and Goons are running my country. It is natural to assume all those not outraged by this are in collusion with it? Sure, if most of the people don’t want to remain secular, then say so. And stop calling India the largest democracy in the world. At least have the guts to admit that what they want is the Hindu Rashtra the goons they support are moving the country towards. The mirror image of Muslim countries they despise. 

 

One of the debate shows I watched had an adman who said that an ad reflects the values of the company. Beyond the product it also shows what the company stands for. The product was jewelry, what they stood for was communal harmony and celebrating diversity. 

 

On the show, one of those supporting the trolling and the withdrawal of the ad said, ‘Why is it that a Hindu woman is shown marrying a Muslim man. Why didn’t they show it the other way around? A Muslim girl in a Hindu household.' That statement needs a ton of unpacking, doesn’t it? But I’ll leave that for another post as I have to rush right now. 

 

When is it not I don’t know, but right now definitely, urgently, a time of pondering our values and what we stand for. 

Weekend online karate — a note

 October 5, 2020

 

I don’t know why but the online black belt gasshuku this weekend felt very special. It’s been a time where I’ve felt very tumultuous internally — agitated, vulnerable and strangely alone. Not my family relationships, but many others feel fragile. I think it’s because everyone has been churned by the pandemic, everybody has had changes to deal with, and is just finding their way around. In the midst of that the gasshuku felt familiar and rooting. 

On day one seeing Sensei Higaonna in his dojo, a solid place where I have felt the grounding energy of years of serious practice by seniors, was a moment that suddenly brought my scattered self, back into my body. And then the six hours of training, focused around kata, brought a quietness that has been gone for a while. 

 

This morning I woke tired as I had barely slept ten hours over the last two days. But I felt light and hopeful. I felt like if this exists in the world then the world will be ok. There are many things in the world that bring to it an ‘ok-ness’ when things feel like they are falling apart. I began writing in my journal and found myself musing about what kata means to me and though I have a growing list of things to be done I felt compelled to write this note. 

 

Karate, and especially kata, is one of the hardest things I’ve learnt in my life. I used to think music was, but kata was even harder. In a group lesson I was always the one facing in the wrong direction or stuck in the last position after the count to move to the next. Even those that had joined after me learnt the steps and passed me by. It was humiliating and many have sniggered at me or told me that perhaps karate was not the thing for me. I remember how I couldn’t master the last move in the first kata despite having been in the dojo for a month. In the first camp I attended in Lonavla, I was the most junior, despite my white hair, and also the slowest to learn anything. I remember Sensei Mistry pulling me up at dinnertime one evening and right there in the cafeteria trying to teach me that impossible last move. He almost succeeded. This state of being the last to learn the moves has continued on, and perhaps one of the reasons I love kata so much is because it is so challenging for me.

 

It to me it is an attempt to perfect the self via the body, and the movements of the body. It puts me in a state where I surrender my always active mind to something else. I bring the body into focus and let go of all there is in the mind. It is a state of lack of control while attempting to find perfect control. When I do a breath focused meditation something shifts in the mind and kata has a similar effect. I am definitely one of those that believe that kata contains inner self-defense structures and if practiced regularly these structures become imbedded in the very body, become a new dna. In that sense it changes the body and the entire self just like meditation changes the mind and the self. If I was a poet I would write an ode to kata today. Not sure why this weekend brought this sudden gush of love for kata. Perhaps the detail and attention with which the Senseis taught their sessions re-ignited my beginners passion.

 

When I attend any training or read an article, even if I learn one new thing, I feel the effort was worth it. This weekend it was a cascading waterfall of learning. New ideas, new possibilities of creating new training drills from kata bunkai seem graspable. The owl and the warrior feel satiated.