Outside the Sentence, Beyond the Word....
Those of us who don't have enough confidence
to live for ourselves.... Made to believe that our
existence ought to have a "purpose" - beyond....
Beyond what?
While the voices and dictates - expectations and rules
hover around the abyss of non-self - staring into the
nothingness that is "i" - the vortex - peering from the edge
of a whirlpool, "they" stare -
surrounded by life, pretending to live - pretending i am...
Navel-gazing they call it. I tried that once.
For nearly an hour. Literally. Lying naked on the futon,
my belly sticking up, trying not to be ashamed of my fat.
Cramped my shoulders for a week after.
And my brain creaked.
creak, creak, creak.
pretending i am.
Waiting, waiting , waiting - but for what.
A couch.
Perhaps.
To live the orange.
perhaps.
"To need nothing is the ultimate indulgence." -
kasya sukham na karothi
viraagaha...
don't let them know.
don't let them know how selfish i really am...
we Know - Helene Cixous, Virginia Woolf, Gwen
and i.
we do.
They will never understand - I think to myself.
That's why she sank into the earth...
Visions from a mythological movie - Ramayana
(yes, with NTR as Rama)- the earth breaks open and
she refuses to return. Sita's pain is mine. I know.
we know.
but we can never tell them for they do not
understand. The subaltern does
not "speak" because there is no language...
Language comes into being in the realm of
Authority. Of staking claims. Mine, mine and mine.
Ramadasa realized this...
did he not?
his plea is to Sita - for she may
try
to understand.
you don't have to be a woman
to know
or a Man not
to know.
to suffer in our minds - as our brain falls
apart
We are not subaltern.
we are....
that which we dare not
express
rich or poor
once we can, perhaps we
are
no more.
if we do not speak, can we
avoid
epistemic violence?
the voices are there - always
here
Existence is violence
I wish i were vapor....
But the coffee drips - and I must return as a voice
calls out "Shilpa" - this time Gwen remembers my name, through
her Alzheimic haze. One of her more coherent moments?
Perhaps.
The coffee is good - as always. But does it
arrest
thought?
The images?
On the terrace that
hot sultry summer night
my aunt's son and I
(how do you translate
"attha koduku"
so my "aunt's son"
i say)
The smell of the upcoming
monsoons
was in the air....
vague clouds flitted by
an ominous huge one
hovered
frowning darkly
perhaps
at what the westerners
would
deem incest...
but we were not to
be
we are from different
worlds...
or were we?
are we?
"Soon," said my cousin
"You're whole world will
be in `quote-unquotes'"
outside the sentence
perhaps
Really?
Really really.
He's the one who said
"If thought is a scalar; creative thought must be a vector".
say What?
(in the nicest possible way, of course)
"Then there must be something more general than thought."
Du-uh...
Within the secure confines of a classroom,
we discuss identity. No "identity". Identity is in the
translation of self? A state of flux. To question our
"Being"...
are we at all... over and over again the question
repeats itself... we are in language - in
interpretation...
Perhaps.
The man with a ponytail suggests - Identity is a
vacuum.
I like that idea... yet "idea" is a vacuum-filler -
slippery...
"slip-sliding away?" the ridiculous song
intrudes.
yet what is the "ridiculous" if not "profound"?
words again....
But the man with a solemn demeanour continues.
He likes his idea too... Perhaps he is defining
himself
for the class. An identity to be presented as the man
who spoke of the inability to fill a vacuum.
perhaps.
Identity is a vacuum, he says. Emptied of meaning.
We insert meaning, he says - as a kind of
negotiation.
Not a linear progression, he says.
do i understand what he
says?
maybe. maybe not.
always words.
we are Sisyphus. I think.
The man with the ponytail fades as I remember
the conference two weeks ago.
Your constant references to the body, they said.
What do you think of "the body as home?"
I can only touch and feel and taste and.....
my body is all that's real?
is it?
I wonder....
What Is?
If the body is home, then expand... Expand...
chocolate ice cream and cappuccino breaks...
Rubinesque women....
I am.
Expand and occupy ... more more more
I am home.
Eat eat eat. The senses are real....
perhaps.
Disembodied....
Decarte comes to mind....
not to body....
disembodied
am i...
*am* I?
I know how Gwen feels.... I do...
Voices. Voices from the past. In the present.
In my head.
They never give up on you....
on and on and on
Hammering, Clammering.
If the Body is
Home
Expand.
Snap out of it. I think, and shake my head.
Like a wet dog out of a dirty puddle -
messy puddle -
what else are thoughts?
Do the Karma thing, babe.
Live for the now.
"Nothing is more real
than
Substance?"
shut up Scott.
now you may dance on the garage, if you
please
like Shiva
on a rampage
just for the fun of it.
Naadirdaani thomthirthaani thanom
thanna dhirana...
Dhiththom tha dhitthomtha...
Okay. then we shall shop for
more
bulbs.
tulips, hyacinthus and daffodils...
dreaming of mallipuvvulu, sampenga
and ...
oh that little green leafed plant like
thing that smells so
heavenly
i forget the name....
desperately i search my memory...
nothing
my past is
disappearing...
what shall i do, Scott?
Substance is Brahmaan.
Do the Karma thing, babe.
Live for the Now.
There is some
thing
Beyond
Perhaps
Within
Perhaps
Outide
Perhaps
All-pervasive
Perhaps
that social structures
complicate
As for Ramadasa when he began his
pleas
to the wife of
"God"
Did he perhaps
doubt
the existence of
God
the male entity
Rama?
Relating to the wife
of god
Her experience more
like the Bhakta's
disillusion with his
God
her male "God".
no more....
mai arpitha mano bhuddhihi
yo math bhakthaha
samay priyaha...
Foucault is the Nietschean "blast"? This man is
without a ponytail.
By the end of the year, he has shaved off all his
hair. But we all
sound the same.
we talk of difference, though...
Action is substance...
perhaps.
finally everything is
cliche.
maybe. maybe not.
like the blue danube
in the background of
cartoons.
Vivaldi, if you please
Four seasons
as you watch the day's
weather
written on the screen...
while the weatherman on
channel 11 begins to think
he really makes
the weather...
and its cliche again.
can you predict the storms in my mind?
while the world
blows up?
the storm will never disappear...
because it will not
appear
as long as i can think of
cliche comfort
Voices. Voices from the past. In the
present.
In my head.
They never give up on me....
on and on and on
Hammering, Clammering.
if only...
if only what?
just
if only....
Pat and I eat pancakes at midnight.
At some chain eating place
that's open all night.
a diner perhaps
if only....
just
if only....
******************
Scott asked me if I would go to a poetry reading
with him the other day. To read. Too.
"Well actually," he said. "You can read your
poetry. I'll
be doing a performance art piece. There'll be others
reading from other kinds of writing - mixed genres
- whatever... How about it, Shilp? Wanna come?"
I cringe. The thought of hearing me read my
most secret emotions
in front of a bunch of strangers...
"You know I just write some stuff... not like
Shakespeare or Keats
or anyone else..." as if i care...
but sometimes i do.
"Tell you what. You bring the stuff along and see
how you feel, okay? You don't have to read if you
don't want to..."
I'm curious to see how other peop write - read what
they write.
So I'll go, I guess. Take some pakodas along - if I
don't want
to read. At least I can feed tham ethnicity through
their
tastebuds, I think.
the lady in elevator asked me
why
i still had an accent
while i wondered what accent
it was hers reminded me
of
the man in the swimming pool
asked me
why
some Indian women wear a "dot"
on their forehead
why didn't
i?
cuz i don't feel like
i said.
and swam away.
The water is my friend
Waves.
blue, green, lead
whatever.
but chlorine makes me sneeze.
this spring i even developed
allergies.
so what if i haven't
lost
my "accent"
neither have you.
It's like Green Eggs and Ham
I think,
Try it and you may like it
"moving me down the highway, moving me down
the highway
moving ahead so life won't pass me by..."
is it "ahead" i move?
we move?
Reading Rorty again, in the margins i
scribble
again
we move
crablike
(remember that play by Sartre?
or was it...
no it wasn't Kafka....or was
it?)
sideways
and then in swirls
up, down, over and
under
direction is movement
perhaps
not?
But what's in a name?
Is language the only signi-
fier
of subjectiv-
ity?
At the reading - it was fun. Scott and Donna did a piece about an
aeroplane journey.
(What if they blow up
as they curse each other
in their minds
because one has
bad breath
and the other wears
too much perfume?
sneeze away...
when the bomb
explodes
you won't even know
it
perhaps)
We were like a bunch of
Outcastes (perhaps)
Celebrating madness unbridled
undisciplined
unpunished
But madness is
Oklahoma
"Kanishka"
if i say nothing can i
avoid
epistemic violence?
Brains are like sponges
They absorb
And expand beyond
Boundaries
Beyond boundaries
Of mind and body
Fat cells,
Brain cells
Expand
lumped together
Not apart.
Feel the brain.
Feel it Ache.
Like the muscles do
after hours of
aerobics.
Feel the pain as the
Brain absorbs
Emotion
too.
"Rationality" is a myth
man-made binaries.
Feyerabend died last year.
but we are all rational
Beings.
From Wagner to Hitler.
even Heidegger.
perhaps.
insanity explodes
(explores?)
what's the Boundary?
The faint line in-
visible
between the sane and the in-
sane?
i am.
do you need to
know
more?
You are
no doubt
too.
But are we at all?
existence is violence
face it.
yet if "sanity" speaks
it is heard
Acclaimed
"Insanity" has
no rights
because it
isn't
There are no lines.
face it
existence is violence
epistemic or not.
Snap out of it, Shilpa! Once again I shake my
head vigorously. Panic hits the pit of my stomach.
My thoughts are scattered - unbridled. I don't
understand myself anymore (as if i ever did? But
illusion - i need it, don't you?) . Pull me back,
Scott. Tell me of your life. Stable, steady perhaps?
But no. White Male he may be, but anchor he is
Not.
Confusion knows no
color.
An anchor he will never
be.
So dance on the garage
maybe like Dick Van Dyke
and the chimney sweeps
"Step in time"
or not.
Shakti in anger
in pain...
The heat scorching her bare
feet
as the asbestos
absorbs
the sun's rays.
ayi giri
nandini
nandita
mohini,
vishwavinodini
nandanuthey...
as my grandmother invokes
the power
of female wrath
contained in a
puja room....
existence is violence.
but do we
exist if we
cannot speak?
always outside
outside Reason
outside the
Word.