Tagged

I got tagged after ages!! Thanks to Siri for this. The tag is to say nine things about myself one of which is a lie. Can you spot the one which is not true?

1. I have some weird dreams. Well, who hasn’t, you say? But mine are pretty weird. I won’t describe any of them because most of the time they are about people I know. And also I forget them very fast. But last night’s one I remember very well. In my dream, I was in Bangalore and I met this guy who happens to be this amazing guy on whom I had a humungous crush on when I was like 19. There were two catches to the whole situation: one was I was leaving Bangalore for good the very same night. As if that wasn’t enough, my nose was blocked so bad that my face became blue and I had to rush to the restroom! Also, there were other things happening around us as well.
2. I read a lot. But I also have my non-reading spells as well. I can write a lot about my reading. But I’d rather you read my posts!
3. I recently started painting. Acrylics mostly. I can’t describe my work. It’s bad that’s about all.
4. I am obsessed about clothes. They have to be just right for the occassion or I won’t step out of the house. But when I am home, I don’t care about what I am wearing as long as I am comfortable. I can be quite jhala at home, actually.
5. I am very up-to-date on the music scene. I know the bands that are upcoming and who will make it big. Chennai has a good rock scene, so that helps.
6. I have been a selfish blogger of late. I post something and forget about following it up. I haven’t been able to check on all my blog friends. But don’t doubt it, I love you guys! Hopefully, I will have enough nothing to do as work to get back into that habit soon.
7. I like stitching. Apart from fixing things like buttons, hems, and accidental tears, I would love to take time out to making things like tote bags. And then carry them around and show them off.
8. I am not a prude but when I know that I am on air, I really don’t like to have my words arm-twisted to mean something else especially a sexual inuendo. Recently, a friend of mine asked me a fake caller for her radio show. So I agreed. Big mistake. The RJ thought he would have some fun but I didn’t like it. So I shut up. Luckily, that shut him up!
9. I can forgive everyone but myself. If something goes wrong, I always feel responsible for it. This extended sense of responsibility comes from being the eldest child at home. Sometimes, it can be a boon, and sometimes it sends me on guilt trips where I have no business being.
   

In my turn, I tag Rita, AquaM, Anurag, Atul, and Soumyadip. Guys, I have no idea what you are into nowadays, but remember the times when we used to have so much fun doing tags? Consider this one for old times' sake!

Guest column: Notes from Hannover

I haven't traveled much but my filmmaker/ film critic cousin has. So, here are some notes she sent from Hannover*, Germany.

I can’t help but think about Jatayu now. All Feluda mystery readers will know about Jatayu/ Lal Mohan Ganguli, the bumbling rotund balding author who accompanies Feluda on almost all his missions providing a perfect foil for the ace detective. If he were allowed to write a mystery based on Hannover, can you guess what the title would be? In Bengali, it would be “Hannoverer Hutopati”, which transliterated into English, it would read, “Hullabaloo in Hannover.”

Over to the traveler.

Yes, I am in Hannover at the moment, and it is a rather nice town. We work at the media centre which is at the famed Hannover Expo area. It’s quite rustic out here being some distance from the town proper but quite well connected.

My hotel is right opposite the Hannover Messe entrance. It’s just a short walk for me to work. The weather is quite pleasant for this time of the year and the best part is that the sun sets at 10 PM!

I went down to the ancient town of Augsburg near Munich last weekend to meet a friend. It was really nice spending time with her exploring the town--complete with museums, quaint little streets and quarters, visit the world’s oldest social settlement and climb up to the town's highest tower!

I managed also to see an ancient monastery and to visit the forested areas of the region. All in two days!!

Hannover is a nice town too and the best part is that you never once hear the car horn!

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*I used the German spelling just as she did. The English version is spelled with a single n.

Generating poetry

Of late, I have been very interested in writing poetry. As I try to put down each sliver of memory, fatten it up with sensory and factual details, weave metaphors and insight into the scene, I can only think of one thing: why did I ever decide to write poetry? It’s such a backbreaking business. Not literally, of course, only metaphorically. I am never satisfied with the end result. I always think my poems are works in progress, which will never see the light of day. Actually that is good in a way. And as broke poets do, I search for poetry writing contests, better if they have no registration fee.

One of these contests led me to the Weekly Haiku Contest at the Guardian, which unfortunately they have closed. However, in one their trademark tongue-in-cheek style, they have provided a link to a Genuine Haiku Generator! We have moved into such an automated society that haikus can be generated. Not even the Guardian can vouch for the quality though.

My connection with haikus goes back to college where I learned to write them in creative writing class. I liked like structure, the way you needed to force yourself to say something within an extremely finite number of words. I, also, had a great teacher. I can’t say I learned much from her other than the structure and types of poems. The other aspects like feeling and dislocation of words, which I learned outside the class. I know for sure that no one in my class ever liked my haikus. I distinctly remember my teacher reading my haiku (called “Egyptian Slave”) and someone else’s poem (I don’t remember the name but I distinction remember it was either about butterflies or had butterflies in it). Then, she asked the class of 20 or so students to vote. Guess whose got the most votes? Not mine. But I was strangely convinced that mine was good and the only reason they didn’t vote for me was because they didn’t understand it.

Though my teacher was so good, I can’t say she was quite successful with like 80% of the class. But I could see she expected something of me. And haikus were easy to write. Once I got carried away and wrote like 14 of them over night mainly because I couldn’t sleep. The next morning, I showed them to her: she picked and chose the ones she thought best to be included in my creative writing dissertation.

Now, my creative writing teacher loved to talk. An hour or two of lecture would like a prelude to what she really had to say. So, most of us diligent students tuned out after the first half hour. I usually looked interested and doodled. But one day, I thought, well, I was in poetry class, I could write poetry. So, even if I was caught, I wouldn’t be punished because I was writing poetry in creative writing class after all. Right after I finished the poem, I looked up and saw her looking at me. I stiffened and tried to be cool. It looked like she had caught me. She continued with whatever she was talking about, twirled a chalk piece in her hand, and casually asked me to show what I was writing. I was stunned. How did she know that I was writing anything at all? I replied, it’s just something I put together right now. She was adamant and asked me to show my poem, which I did. All I got was a smile. I think she was smiling because she found a student who actually wrote poetry in class!

I never know what she thought of my writing. I could detect a faint aroma of approval but nothing that was strong enough. She never once told me that I could write at all. Or well. I left college after my master’s only to be back in a month teaching for like two weeks on contract. The taught students, my age or older, post-colonial literature, general English, and creative writing. It was then that she met a close friend of mine, asked about me, and said, “What? Why is she teaching? She should be writing!” That was the closest I ever got to know that I could write. At least, well enough to merit that remark. That memory still makes me smile.

Coming back to poetry generation, the way the world is going, I always imagine a future without poetry. It will be a sad, dry, mechanical maybe even a demented – more than usual - one. A sort of a post-apocalyptic world where people are so wrapped in everyday survival that they forget what they live for. A word, which prices the survival of the loudest unthinking machine than the one which thinks. A world where sensitive individuals will have to hide in order to survive till the world order changes. I do wish our world loses many things but poetry in its struggle for survival. When the world order does change, I wish poets and philosophers rule this world rather than economists.