anjuna

2004-06-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

bacchus

summer of love
where songs become tatoos

ink on skin, fantasies of flesh

2004-06-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

when the saxopohone man plays on 54th street
filling an open wound in the sky
we name him sunrise

when his pain climbs through brass
resonant
amoral
nostalgic

we call angels

he plays for a band of black gypsies
with crimson in their lips
castanets in their breasts

who sleep on gray slate in the night
and jump from skyrise to skyrise
while their chests heave and swell

for a day of milk 'n honey.

the man on 54th street
knows all this
and when he plays
he plays for all the angels
who wish they could play their dream
too.

2004-06-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

sometimes, the clothes do not make the man
naked this freedom, which i hold in my hands

2004-06-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

for andre

the water
like glass

the beachsand
like gold

a coastal road
a swim
a flight
a pair of birdwings

i've been found
in the house of sand and fog

2004-06-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

estectica (beauty)

your kisses
rise to the level of art
finding sacred in the profane

the yellow stucco wall
disappears
as your lips become
the vulgarity of beauty

2004-05-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

love monologues

1
love is not for cowards

2
have you ever met someone so in love they didn't need a lover?

3
love's only reason is what reason could never understand, you dig?

4
how do you catch a bird without killing it?
...by becoming the sky

2004-05-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

i spoke before i bled
i laughed before i cried
i found before i lost
i lied before i came
i hurt before i held
i drowned before i swam

i died before i loved

2004-04-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

1976

i am completely inspired by the 70's. everything from the music and rebelliousness to film and national consciousness. it was an era of revolution and lost youth. it was the postmath to blood, but every time i ask anyone who lived it, they look at me as if i'm the dumbest person in the world with the dumbest question and ask, "why do you care?" this is why..

war was not the answer
but crept curiously
through the crusted shingles
of rooftop fear
the sanguine grain
broke revolting minds
and there was my mother, the poetess
left undone
her magnificent village of waterfall hair
piled up,
let down
slumbering
angry
questioning the energy feeding through her umbilical cord

i lay
in the silence of screaming
where blood was the new black
of daggers drawn
i lay
in the answer
where mothers were the question
one thousand suns revealed one pilgrimage moon
in darklong corridors of fighting
the distance sang
of oppression
hate
destruction
creation
so why do they ask me
if i remember?
when i was in the womb
burning
while the world was on fire

2004-04-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

the night i met bob dylan

Lost and found through the meandering
maze I was found in the fogged blue din
full of love entering two wooden doors
rickety and crackling with no shame
like the lovers, the knights and the fools
awaiting Cailliope with teeth and vowels.

I sat by him, a hermit, a stranger within
I wanted to know. Before I even opened
my eyes or took off my scarf I wanted to know.
he smiled I smiled he spoke I swam in his head
while Nina Simone sang Sinnerman and he lifted
his glass to ask me what I wanted from the night.

I replied You as he smiled and spilled his glass
as the moon spilled on me once. We danced all
night finding freedom in touch banshee lips and
smoking fingertips. For that moment of pomegranate
seeds I journeyed to the promiseland and asked
him if he would ever wander to Morocco with me
to smell the stars in the desert measure life in cups and
currents of fish away from this medieval city of mockery.

His smile became sweet, a magnifying glass even but
every bird has a nest and before he left he told me he
loved me and I think of him still I think of him still
here in this dark desert of mine I think of his eyes
feating and fasting while I,
I never go hungry.

2003-07-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

The Famished Road: By Ben Okri

Ben Okri’s, The Famished Road, is the author’s daring first book from his trilogy. The Famished Road is the story of Azoro, a spirit child, who is destined to fall on earth and live a mortal life, but who, painfully and constantly attempts to will himself to death and return the spirit world where he is peaceful and free. Azoro’s home is colonial Nigeria, where staunch and proud men hunted by politicians and are at the mercy of poverty, men who fear magic rites and whose natural urge for existence embeds their people in rituals and cultures of dreaming spirituality and cult belief, all in a land that is burning with revolution.

Among this vulgarity and beauty, among these diatribes and tattoos, emerges Azaro. Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but he is ethereal and open to the rhythms of Nigerian life. He witnesses the Black Tyger, riots, burning houses, and appalling hunger and squalor , while hovering in the background are classism at the bar of the enigmatic and powerful Madame Koto, the mysterious but helpful photographer, the malevolent blind singer, as well as a slew of good and bad spirits. From all this Azaro metamorphisizes. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute. The tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits is Azaro's story. He accepts his destiny as a child of this earth. Okri expresses the relationship between father and son through their friendship crossed with bouts of frustration and socio-economic limitations.

Okri has much to say about the state of living in Nigeria, but in his poetic way he ultimately unites us with visual and verbal prose ascending into a mystic conception of the spiritual world. Deriving his inspiration from his own homeland, Okri allows Azaro to narrate through the vegetation and landscape of cotton silk trees and lakes, myth and songs of his people and fuses the characters with a phantasmagorical timelessness which allows them to appear in our imaginations time and time again.

Rolling, quivering, heaving and fleeing, The Famished Road is an emotional journey into the heartbeat of Nigerian country, a beautiful wandering from the written to a world whose universe has its own language. Okri creates an allegory of life where a river becomes a road that swallows its travelers, as life, voracious in its hunger, overwhelms and swallows those who travel its road. Life, screams Okri, is a famished road.

2003-07-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

Raktakarabi: The Urban Sound Opera

Parnab Mukherjee's production of Rabindranath Tagore's Raktakarabi: The Urban Sound Opera is a daunting script not so much for its poetry but for the edgy realism that becomes the meta-text. The director's efforts to move away from the poetic construct and create an urban thriller are evident as the play delves deep into the darkness of Raktakarabi -- the scary layers within the text, the textured characters of Nandini who breaks open the red dawn of the future and the lone voice of Raja whose moods, fierce and filthy, ricochet in black palpitating darkness, and the chiaroscuro play of shadows and basement light submerge Raktakarabi into a level of urban site-specificity where words become naked-raw installations and the primal pain of a coal mining town called Yakshapuri comes alive.

The production fuels unmistakable elements central to the play:

The genesis of Raktakarabi's soundscape was unclear to Tagore.

Raktakarabi has a strong sense of body politics: sexuality as a weapon and a hazy line between sex as a mental metaphor and sex as a physical metaphor. Or even the classification of Nandini as moral, amoral or immoral.

Raktakarabi was never quite finished. Tagore subsequently tried to de-mystify the text through numerous writings, thereby increasing the already piled layers of interpretations.

Not at all clothed in poetry, this production embraces the industrial metaphors which chillingly foretell labour exploitation. The set design turns Sankhini River into a silvery pathway, 'Rajar ento' or 'vestiges of Raja's meal' into labourers dilemma with the tentacles of branding, computerization and globalization. Even the site-specificity of the play evokes the industrialized, dusty town, hence the choice of a school basement.

Raktakarabi is a long poem laced with notions of freedom. This production has been inspired by Tagore's analysis of the play in the Manchester Guardian, analysis of Sankho Ghosh and a novel by Nabarun Bhattacharyya called 'Khelnanagar' -- a modern treatise that talks of an eerie post modern Raktakarabi landscape.

The brilliant uniqueness of this production lies not only in the gritty and barbaric performance styles of the cast, but also in its supplementary texts used throughout the play between acts and scenes. The supplementary texts used in the play include Tagore's drafts of 'Nandini' and 'Yakshapuri', Collected Letters of Tagore Vol 18, Sankha Ghosh's essay on Raktakarabi and poem, 'Monohorpukur'.

Deep in the red dust of Yakshapuri, a painstaking portrait is being painted. The portrait is of Kishore, innocent and defiant, bringing Nandini her favorite flower; Ranjan, a man losing his country and losing his life but gaining something he has searched for within -- his freedom; Nandini, the light in the presence of darkness; Raja the avaricious king whose human objects largely depend on machine and who brings Ranjan to his death; and Sardar, a symbol of the fascist face of India. This is a portrait of Tagore's literary creations in a side of sky and earth, dream and song, whose sonata of life is -- death as their only weapon.

2003-06-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

frankincense and myrrh
incense perfume the air
smoke merges with light
spirals linger of dust
in the slant of sunlight
like an arabic scroll
mandala,
of arcs and curves
wafting
in hypnotic ritual
of afternoon prayer

sleepy island
palm fronds fall like eyelashes
tropical storms sweep
jasmine
to sweeten sleep
bluish dusk
in the half light
morning comes
in deep red crimson smudges of sky
his shape is in my skin

2003-05-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

It was the driest season
The rhythm of austerity
Etched deep into roots
Earth painted in
Burnt sienna
Raw umber
Golden amber
Autumn smeared in the sand
And the rocks
Rusted and running rampant with life
Tuckaloos calling wild
Kuckaburras scratching the ghost gum trees
Fire energy feeding through Uluru
Burning against the march of Aboriginal sunsets
Ochres, kaolin and charcoal
Hanging in a bonnet of blue indigo

This, the desert people call their land
Children of the Dreamtime
Lost at the hand
Of the white wolves
They walk those same footprints
To beg forgiveness
To tell their story
Of a desert
Of a coast never seen

In the East the land was a dream
Lush fertile green mounds pregnant after rainfall
Fig trees palms coconut groves
Purple jacarandas
Crimson hibiscus
Red oleander
Ibis
The sea eagle
Black raven craving in a black sky
Fleshy yellow roots of cassava
Aubergine cassis
Tea plantations
Macadamia nut plantations
Cashews
Pussy willows
Halcyon flowering around
Coral reefs in waters of lapis lazuli

A time when people were the minority
The wind rescued back into her desert
Birthing by the rocks
Following the vanishing sand beneath her feet
Falcons told time
Where nature was a vast soul

2003-05-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

my journey began by canoe
down tributaries that wound through a landscape
of fertile lushness
across humid plains
a shadow slid across the water
a crocodile
searching for shade
swashing in muddy waters of
mangled roots deep in the riverbed
thirsty mangrove, a maze
water of the ancients
clan of the primordial beasts
law of club and fang
in the virgin forest of shadowlands
i see a yellow island in the sky
lonely wildflower.
underneath the sun's percussion
leaves fall in silhouettes and shadows
clapping against each other like colorful castanets
in ambers and fire orange reds
do i smell the unripe tamarind trees still
lingering still lingering..
i walked the the river savoring that long lost perfume
hoping to find floating
blue lotuses, red lotuses
there i found only lilies, hyacinths, watercress
offerings to the lost
urns carrying ashes to the sea
like a river flows history
to hurt
to bleed

2003-05-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

rotorua to wellington
lemon lime fields carpet
rolling green hills and slide into
the sinking sand of dune and sea
land of the long white cloud
wispy and creamy
atorua
hanging low like ghost mist
parts the sky in two
in the still of the night
when the midnight sky
bleeds the opium ink
of maori tattoos
their deep purple glow illuminates the wind
i am on a winding coastal road
chasing the hunter moon

2003-05-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

jacaranda tree
blooming purple leaves in fall
in violet sky

2003-05-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

footprints of blood in the path i traveled lit up the desert, a track of crimson pearls
~ ghalib

on lonely bay
i ascend
gray sloping cliffs
seasoned with dense woods
above the shingled beach
shell mounds of conch and sea harvest of wild seaweed

painting the eroding shoreline
green mossy pebbles meeting pink granite coast
i hang from above the evening sunlight of shakespeare's cliffs
and see the laughing crowd keen with salt of the sea
gales of emerald laughter
fill the crab holes

the boats. the sands. the esplanade
floating with the lush, watery green
still at night, i draw inside
and forward she came
silver moonlight shattered into
a thousand blue diamonds, the light of deeper eyes

became scheherazade 's azure arabian desert sky
telling tales of lemon myrtle on silk balconies
gold paisley bracelets knotted in arabic script
woven with latticework of infinite promises
into the madness in cloaked lace i roamed
with only a prayer and crimson pearls

still at night, i draw inside
without lover or love
forward she came
as my story unfolded, she gave me a name
i laughed with the loneliness of flocking seagulls
sad, but the same..

2003-05-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

come back my love
come back to me

i am the raga of flaming sunset
a bright red ruby

journeying towards the horizons
in the direction of the setting sun

i return home in anticipation of
sunset --

a moment where the immortality of the day ends
and looks into the mystery of the coming night.

a journey into
the carnival of mother kali

i am a lone being
i am a raga radiant with prayer

filled with the invigorating spirit of the diya at the altar
filled with temple music

i am one with all
i wear life like a beautiful necklace

the unfaithful speak the word of god
while i dance and become god

a dance of sensual ecstacy
morning meditation,

brings creation once again
come back my love, come back to me..

2003-02-23T04:40:00.000-08:00

life hidden in mounds
bittersweet mango blossoms
peel away my skin

2003-02-23T04:39:00.002-08:00

melancholy strokes
her naked back to find
the bluest tattoo

2003-02-23T04:39:00.001-08:00

sea lion woman
cry yourself into the sea
and sing away girl

2003-02-23T04:39:00.000-08:00

firebird chose her flight
comings and goings of men
retreated her into wind

2003-02-23T04:38:00.001-08:00

country in her eyes
no navigation no sails
a voyage in you

2003-02-23T04:38:00.000-08:00

tired, weary sailor
wandering in Love’s journey
why? wind into me

2003-02-23T04:37:00.001-08:00

warm honey and tongue
feel me comin’ down your bones?
here comes sound and fury

2003-02-23T04:37:00.000-08:00

you don’t mean what you
say. you don’t say what you mean
why you chasin’ me?

2003-02-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

let there be no thieves
here in the temple tonight
come inside worship me

2003-02-23T04:35:00.002-08:00

empty words hollowed
holes, broken kisses on night
after lonely night

2003-02-23T04:35:00.001-08:00

feline feral smell
leonine eyes. this huntress
a prey in her own hunt

2003-02-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

no more i love yous
that language is leaving me
the silence is sensual

2003-02-23T04:34:00.001-08:00

spilled blood everywhere
on hands on minds. che’s children
die for tomorrow

2003-02-23T04:34:00.000-08:00

two rivers crossing
passing to find an ocean
like lovers on their way

2003-02-23T04:33:00.000-08:00

leave this world in peace
we became one long ago
before time, before death

2003-02-23T04:32:00.001-08:00

ceremony of strangers
now we’re just like them
bonded to bleeding

2003-02-23T04:32:00.000-08:00

royal tiger king
lotus queen rain in the glass
palace of Bengal

2003-02-23T04:31:00.000-08:00

if you let her in
she will never let you go
soil grass trees mother

2003-02-23T04:26:00.000-08:00

painting history
india ink is spilling
a feather in black dust

2002-12-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

Chameleon
he walks like a Langston Hughes poem
down a dark Harlem alleyway in midsummer
bustling with jazz and funk
Herbie Miles Dizzie
raising the roof
base is low
lights are dim
neon blue
music is the aching between a luscious black woman's thighs
he stands
watching
with sad rebellious eyes
fantasizing to be inside this woman
she pours a glass of water
down her blouse
slowly
as beads of sweat flow down that valley between her breasts
he wants simply to be
that water
he who loves this water
as if it were a sin to stay away

2002-09-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

Sketch of a City: Calcutta

An emotional city ruled by moods. Evoked by rivers, bays, the time of day, and the monsoon. What started out as a small village Kalikata grew into a commercial port and intellectual center and eventually the Crown of British India. Now it is dilapidated, decadent, decrepit, covered by dust and inhabited by desperate people on desperate streets where the people are the remains of the day. Magic works here. Native poetry hasn't lost it's rhythm and rhyme, familial bonds are rooted deep, and food reflects the way of life here. Traditional people like to see the whole animal when they shop for their meals. In this culture, personal contact is more meaningful and close to the earth is a way of life, it is no surprise that people are interested in a complete relationship to their food. They buy it or raise it, they harvest it, they clean it and they cook it - all before they eat it in gratitude. These people have a very complete relationship to their food as they see where something grows and they eat foods in season. There is great power in knowing where their food came from and preparing it with their own hands making macher jhol, posto, potol, shukto, and shorshe bata. The wholeness of zen. There is a suppleness to survival in this city. An organic connection to nature. At sundown, street wanderers gather around the pavement for a game of jua, the old retire to evening walks by the lake hemmed in by cottonsilk trees, the young fill their mouths with spicy street food and play footbal in the streets. Garihat, the main shopping market is usually bustling by late evening with the ladies of the house, the whitewashed buildings of Esplanade are lined on streets with British architecture and emotional memories of a colonial India, Dalhousie spins out of control with bankers and lawyers travel in rush hour through dust, the smell of old India lies strong in the once segregated Park Street and in the intellectual fanfare of College Street's book melas and coffee house, where West Bengal's intellectuals once gathered to revolutionize government, economics and art. And the holy Ganges flows by ghats, underneath the Hoogly Bridge and evenly out to the Bay of Bengal. Every evening.

2002-08-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

The Wind and The Sea: A Children’s Story

On an island underneath the stars, far into the great wide open ocean, there was a hill.

On one side of the hill there was a village that worshipped the sun. On the other side of the hill there was a village that worshipped the moon.

In the two villages, there lived a sun loving family who had a boy named Milan and a moon loving family who had a little girl named Paki.

Paki and Milan played together everyday of their childhood. On the hill. In the rain. With the birds. Near the sea. Everyday. And Milan fell in love with Paki.

One day, when childhood passes them by Milan asked Paki to run away with him to see the world beyond their island. She said yes and so they went on their way.

Paki went to her family to tell them she was going far away with her friend, Milan. Her mother joked disbelievingly, “Silly girl, you are going only back to your room. This is your home. On this side of the hill under the moon. What kind of ideas is Milan putting in your head? You will not see him anymore!”

Saddened by her mother’s words, Paki went to the top of the hill to tell Milan the truth. Milan could not leave the island without her. He loved her too much to see a brand new world without her.

One night, they sneaked their entire precious belongings together and took Milan’s family boat to leave their island.

Just as they pushed off from shore, they saw the families come running down the beach with fire torches screaming, “Come back, come back!”

They sailed right into a storm that had just started. The little boat tipped over and Paki fell into the sea. The moon loving family saw this and fell to their knees in prayer.

Milan jumped into the water to save her. He could not find her! Milan searched and searched. He swam farther into sea.

The moon loving family saw Paki drifting on a piece of wood on her way back to shore. They pulled her onto the beach and kissed her and hugged her and thanked the moon.

The sun loving family asked, “Where was Milan?” Everyone waited throughout the night. Milan did not return.

Paki waited for his return every day and every night. She loved until she became bone. She worshipped until she became stone. And one day, she disappeared, drifting away with the wind.

Their spirits were soon united to love each other forever.

When she wept…it rained.
When they fought…it stormed.
When they loved…the horizon could be seen.

The families in the village learned their great lesson about love and sacrifice. And from that moment on they united together forever in worship of the Wind and Sea.

2002-08-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

i once met you before
standing low
by the nocturne rain
near windswept palm groves
tumbling coconut shells
green mounds
blue clouded hills
i dreamt of you
every year
and now it still rains
it still pours
it still hurts
the ocean is here
inside me
and now I am your wish that came true
the man in the looking glass is looking back at last
the water is beautiful
glowing
exhaling
everywhere at once
as it rains again
listen to the water
as it sinks
into river
into skin
chasing sea
finding ocean
where you and I once waited

2002-08-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

i have wanted to
smell so many rains with you
underneath blacksky nights like these lingering in Goa
when the sky begs for her moon to spill
a palpitating night
lined along wetlands of tongue
your mouth in exile
for so long
the rain fills the spaces
we have left behind
this is our joy and our pain
my heart is swollen with humidity
impatient
wondering
anticipation, anxiety
longing for the falling
as the water closes in
i wait to be washed away again
i wait for this rain

2002-08-31T01:23:00.000-07:00

Home: A Personal Essay

I am on a lonely road and I am travelling
Looking for something, what can it be?
…I want to be strong, I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Do you want to dance with me baby?
Do you want to take a chance on maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

- joni mitchell

People often ask me, “Where is your home?” and I used to know the answer. Today though, is my home in India or the US or even some place else? “Home” has a different meaning for everyone. Some find home in duty and family while others see home in their profession or society. Even still, home is geography for some, where they feel settled mentally, emotionally, and physically. “Home”, eventually as I have come to know is this earth, in every country with every people. I will find that home through the journeyed lands. I will find liberation.

Liberation and limitation are two sides of the same coin. Without experiencing one, you cannot appreciate the other. To the average mind such as myself, the dimension of liberation, of spiritual cognition, brings enlightenment while the dimension of limitation or earthly, mundane pleasures bring ecstasy. We all choose which path we want to follow in life. Some choose one over the other. Worse yet, some become entrapped in inner conflict, agreeing with both paths but never quite mastering either one’s completeness to graduate to a balanced state of thought and living. This is the state I am currently in right now. I have seen the abysmal ulcers of the material world. The exponential greed for money, cars, clothes, homes; daunting human insecurities and the uncontrollable need for desire, boyfriends, marriage, and sex; convergence and conformity based on fear of society’s backlash against poverty, compassionate hearts, and progressive minds; and institutionalised methods of thinking to repress the masses. I don’t want to be in that world. I choose not to put faith in conventional solutions. I fell in love with life. I fell in love with giving to those less fortunate than me. I fell in love with the spirituality of humanity and striving to see the child in everyone, making love my religion, learning to see with my heart and feel with my soul, bathing in all the colours of the earth, listening to the wind’s ancient lessons of my ancestors, finding the God within, playing with fireflies and sunbirds, wishing on a full moon, believing in mermaids and dragons, and striving to fill myself every day with the peace and love of my brothers and sisters.

This is what truly makes me happy. However, I am also in limbo between liberation and limitation. My body aches from my ferocious appetite for sexuality, the need of knowing for the crossroads, my anger against certain schools of men who leave a legacy of oppression against women and the poor, and last but not least my leonine ego. I have immersed myself in both worlds and have been running. From what and to where I run I do not know. I have not found that inner silence which makes me fly nor have I discovered the stillness without which, makes me run faster. Someone once told me to make Time my companion, then I wouldn’t run any more. So I went back to my beginnings to find an answer.

My time in India was a period of losing myself and finding myself. I have always believed that you can never know yourself or a country unless you know its heart, its people. So I looked to my fellow countrymen and women for inspiration. What I saw was uncanny. This land that we call India, Hindustan, Bharat…is a land of spirits. These spirits are everywhere leaving messages for those of us who are willing to listen. They are the battered spirits of headless bloodied warriors from the Mughal Empire, shadows of heart-broken queens and courtesans famished for love, restless victims of the Great Famine who sacrificed their lives to feed their family the leftover water from cooked rice, ghosts of the thousand proud 18 year old patriots who hung for their country, deformed souls of satis burned on the sacrilege of funeral pyres with their husbands, stone hardened child widows who never saw freedom, and screaming carcasses of unborn girls. Our nation, is a country of ancient histories, silk roads, mystical whispers of snowy mountain peaks, war, rape, carnage, emperors, corrupt Brahmin priests, politicians, philosophers, gurus, poets, martyrs, kings, harems, queens, courtesans, genocide, temples, mosques, deserts, backwaters, lakes, oceans, palm groves, banyan trees, land of Buddha, Ashoka, Tagore, Vivekananda, Bhagat Singh, Nethaji Subhas Chandra Bose, herbalists, witch doctors, snake charmers, camel caravans, elephant tamers, burial grounds, gypsies, untouchables and the caste system. These wing tipped spirits remind me of the true meaning of liberation. I have seen nothing. I have experienced even less. Yet I am so sad, so proud of my people, of this land. The spirits remind us that progress is oceans away and suffering is the shore that surrounds us. How can we call ourselves a liberated nation when we can’t feed our poor, millions go on homeless and uneducated and diseased, basic necessities like water are unavailable to the public, cholera and malaria run rampant, secular politics are embedded in religious biases in the world’s largest democracy, the caste system remains to be uprooted and oppresses unborn victims, and where a vote is a means of surviving death in the hands of unjust political parties.

India is a country that will humble you and test your patience. It is a country that should make you think twice about everything around you. This was an amazing year of seeing family again after so many years, experiencing my homeland one level deeper, remembering that this is still a developing country with so much hope, and finding the worst of myself and the best of myself because India tends to do that you.

From this moment on I have decided to serve humanity and understand art and life. My first step is to join the Peace Corps and dedicate my life to women’s literacy and empowerment, particularly in India. I have been blessed with opportunity and I want to share that power with other women. That’s really all I’ve ever wanted in life. Giving is what sets me free. I want to live in as many countries around the world to understand and experiment with the people around us, simultaneously strengthening my sense of self. I still want learn flamenco dance in Andalucia in Spain, study classical mythology & architecture in Greece, discover the lost religion of Zoroastrianism in the mountains of Iran, live in a kibbutz in Israel, backpack with my father around our ancestral villages of West Bengal, study law in South Africa, and climb Kilimanjaro in Kenya. The unravelling is seeing with new eyes, two eyes filled with wonder and bewilderment, not just awing at new landscapes. I want to ride a tsunami of creativity in poetry, writing, and drawing. I want to wake up to colour and the senses every day and work with this art to help the unfortunate. The way you live your life is also an art, you know. Art is everywhere. Anyone that has breathed in the sea air, sang to the ocean, walked barefoot, kissed a woman or has struggled has seen art. Have you ever experienced a purple sunset or held the hand of a bleeding heart? What more can anyone want in life? This IS it!!! I have fallen in love with the simple pleasures of being alive, of existing because I am still a little girl naked in the rain sticking out my tongue. I have so much to learn and appreciate. Every day holds a reason to love, imagine, and create.

And love? Hey, everyone wants to love and be loved. I’m no different. Love brings life. I am always ready to love, but men are not always ready to love me. They think, “Oh she’s always flying away. She will never settle down for me. She wouldn’t return to me. Why should I give her my heart?” So they love someone else who stays in one place. Someone who still can’t love them as wholeheartedly as I did could or would. It’s a shame. Don’t they know that even birds fly back to their nests? Loving me is too scary for them. I am a wanderer. There is not enough definition. Men require definition. They need to know when you will be there for them and how you will be there for them. I can only offer adventure, freedom and a love that doesn’t have all the answers yet. A love that is still questioning. A love that is still blossoming me into womanhood. But, they always run to me for friendship, for mother. That is safe enough for them. They keep me close by but far enough so that they won’t get hurt. In the end, it is always me that gets hurt, me whose heart gets stomped on. Hurt is good. Hurt is a teacher. Hurt makes us stronger. I don’t mind. I have a lot of love to give. But someday I would like someone to love me too. People go through MUCH worse and so I am not sad. My faith is eternal in Love and I know that someone very special is searching for me too, a bird to fly in his sky. Though, I will never settle because society wants me too or because I am lonely. Lonely is not the same as being alone.

Activism. Art. Compassion. This is my life’s work. My spiritual journey. A liberation of the heart. Different ways of living. Endings and new beginnings. It is a return to my soul. Home. So you see, home has nothing to do with geography. Home is a trinity. Happiness, sadness and madness. Love, wisdom, compassion. Home is an emotional cycle.

Home for me is destiny. And I am just a guest.

Do you know where your home is?

2002-08-31T01:20:00.000-07:00

lying with him
stretched naked across our bed
i see
eyes of a child
a river
on a crisp, autumn morning
dawn has brought shivering leaves
brown cracked batik
floating alongside
spiders pine needles ghosts
he glows in the dawn
while his eyes remain dim
he is earth
he is water
he is wind
carried passed the snowy peaked mountains
of Himalayan gods
Shiva meditates besides Uma’s long undone hair
Shiva makes love to the doe eyed Enakshi
i smell
sandalwood and musk
i smell a man
i breathe him and become high

lying with him
i burn in his arms
i am surrounded by surrender,
awakening, nature
we crouch to earth to be humbled
two brown bodies submerged
in puja
he, inside me
a thirsty child lost in a temple
where blood becomes rhythm
his spirit lifts from the fire
and I await his return
this
soul catcher
has been flying inside of me all of my life
freedom has never felt so wild
than
when i am here
lying with him

2002-08-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

As I Wandered To See

Once there was a river.

The river had eyes.
The river had a heart.
Not yet able to travel far
Was I, this lonely river.

Every day I awoke to the same sleepy mist, spoke with the same wise grandmother cypress tree, danced with the same orange sunset, and played with the same eagle and the same flock of birds.

I was very sad because I had never left the small area of the foothills by where I was born.

One blue night, the rains rose and a heavy storm swept me away.

I broke from the foothills and into strange lands and terrain I had never seen.

I saw pilgrims on their way to the mountain.

I passed by white marble temples where devotees bathed in the dawn of my water.

I passed by castles of weeping willows telling stories of monsoon floods, lost villages and animals and humans washed away.

I flowed passed a small dry, desolate village where the people were hungry and sick. I swelled so that my waters could become tributaries and canals for the people.

Among the golden plains and prairies I saw ravens soaring above me. I saw wild horses with black manes, their heads and necks held high, running in herds for miles into the horizon.

I saw lush green paddy fields of rice.

I saw all different kinds of fish in the salty backwaters.

I saw boats go downstream but they never returned upstream.

I saw all this and more for hundreds of years.

I saw beauty and I saw sadness.

Then one day, I broke again from where I was resting and I ran to the sea.

Many, many years later…

Another little river flowed to the sea and asked where am I.

You are on your way home replied the ocean.

Who are you asked the little river.

I was once you. I rose with the sun and I started my journey. Having mountains as my friends I came down the valley, up the hills and across the streams. I continued… As evening descended I met the ocean and asked why?

I swam in the ocean’s generosity and soon I became that ocean.
Now I must teach you.

Where will you go next asked the little river.

Come.
Let us wander together.
Let us see…

2002-08-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

A blind man
With pain but
With no voice
Here to feel
Himself burn
Every night
In her eyes.
Gypsy eyes
Painful eyes
Flamenco
Dancer in
The dark wild
His rhythm
She is fire
He needs her
He can’t explain
He needs her
He needs her
He watches
With his soul
He loves her
In her cage

2002-08-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

you churn
i burn.
yet you churn and you churn.
i turn
i learn
and still
i burn

2002-08-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

you slipped into my dreams
i woke to run after your heart
you lay me to bed
and never finished
my bedtime story

2002-08-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

he wrapped me in the dusk
of his eyes

climbed the virgin Himalayan
highs

to taste a wet season
of lake and sky

2002-08-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

moonless-sky
in the dark of night
a paler shade of blue

lifeless love
in a shadow’s light
a paler shade of you

2002-08-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

i breathe the dusk in your voice
that scratchy, nighttime voice
finding its way in hollows and curves
looking for a way out
our bodies
crusading
sometimes war, sometimes peace
a never ending longing
for something that is not ours
we are
windless invaders
who once touched the morning sky

2002-08-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

that dark night
the lines of our skin
merged into shadows
of wild sculptures
serenading the wall.
when sunset met sunrise
the firebird flew free
it was a peaceful awakening
morning adagio

2002-08-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

i painted your scent
to smell you in my dreams
on the touch of night

i carried your song inside me
and echoed our wilderness
in the call of birds

i heard the ocean inside my eyes
crying and I saw
you loving me

2002-08-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

haikus

2002-08-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

loving you is breathing

2002-08-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

cicada
brings sound of night
when i whisper your name

2002-08-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

when clouds cannot seperate
water is hidden
deep inside
mountain
rain
river
ocean

2002-08-17T00:09:00.000-07:00

a moth kisses a flame
snow falls on red oleander

2002-08-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

he tucked his face
into the black slumber of her hair
a dark sleep
swept him over
nightfall

2002-08-17T00:06:00.000-07:00

a red line
in a honey yellow sky
amber waves swell and moan
the sun rises and sets
with you

2002-08-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

chestnut smoke
in a misty wood
early morning dew
atop dark mossy hills
i smell you again

2002-08-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

green eyes
give me a glimpse of autumn leaves
rustling in song

2002-08-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

tus ojos
eran color de amor distante
dos paises profundos

inclinado en la lluvia
melancolia
arrolladora arrolladora arrolladora

tus ojos

2002-08-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

indigo
mood
melancholy
midnite
damp cave
moonlit fronds
salt spray
nite upon us
cobalt blue anjuna

2002-08-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

my body an open leaf

crisp crimson
fiery light
spring bloom

in valleys of wild poppies
saffron fields glow orange
ripe summer

drifting in amber
crackling batik brown
rusted autumn

solitude in sundown
old age fallen white
deep night winter

my body is a closed leaf

2002-08-12T04:51:00.000-07:00

i am the same song
sung by red toreadors
who laugh with guitars

lazy, bedroom eyes
enclose the night’s black until
your memory dawns

you are in my blood
he says, what do i do now?
bleed partner. just bleed.