The Dancer and her Muse.

Watercolour and Acrylic on Posterboard: 2011.

nrtta. nrttya. naattya.
stomp, step, feel

naattya.
– you lie beautifully. the lamp shines liquid gold on your
skin as smooth as brass-perhaps,
which they rub and rub and rub to clean you, to purify
the soul in your eyes which roll up and down and side
to side as if they see through me and behind me, tracing over my
clavicle, your eyelashes flicker on me, around the edges
of my lips into my flesh. you lie beautifully;
rasas line your face, each wrinkle bordered in bhayanaka-black
a threatening green and krodha-red, widening
your eyes, the purity they created reflects me
instead- eyeliner lashes up and out in
vengeance ready to stab my
heart over and over in return for ruining you.

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Wishlist From Kerala

I want you to bring back
kaapi in those small glasses you can
see his eyes through while you watch
him pour the tea and the milk in a type of
neat choreography over the metal
counter you lean on, and the

Canvas: Painted with Acrylic, Dented with a Butter Knife.

Nothing New.

I will cut my daughter’s hair
dress her in beige and black and brown,
preferably in shirts with denim collars
and large knit sweaters and pants
with triple layers.

To be most aware of the woman in me and the monster in you.

a Drink per Memory.

Once upon a time, a little girl would take long walks with her Appachen in this little town called Tiruvalla, where people spoke this crazed-out language called Malayalam and heat was actually hot. And on the way (to nowhere in particular), they’d stop at this little tiny store that sold random yet necessary things (sambranis, bar soaps, chewing gum & neelam). And this little girl would sit on top of the counter and drink a fizzy carbonated drink called Thums Up while her Appachen and the storekeeper discussed the INC (kaipathi!), CPI (‘M’ may or may not be added) and white-white kerala politics (Munshi and Asianet News at 7!).

And then, somewhere in between, the little girl grew out of that adjective and forgot the ease in language, the strength of the heat, the name of that shopkeeper and of course, the taste of Thums Up.

Then, somewhere further down, asian supermarkets came into the picture and at least one of the aforementioned was turned right. True loves reunited ♥

In the reflection of that dirty glass bottle remains everything that truly matters.

——————————-

“What we remember from childhood we remember forever – permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”

-Cynthia Ozickey

.

As I sit in class…

Woah! Since when do we get laptops for labs? I stared in awe, and perhaps even drooled a bit, as our physics teacher began to pass out brand new and of course, the fully PERFECT Macbooks to everyone. Sanitize your hands, she was saying, you don’t want to get oil stains on these things. They’re worth a thousand dollars each… The instructions went on but by this point, everyone had already tuned out. After all, the point is- we get a new toy.. Twenty thousand dollars worth of equipments for each department? No wonder school taxes keep going up. And that too, just to save ourselves the two-second walk to the computer lab. Brilliant. Now we can do the calculations for the lab right here in the classroom (and then spend another few thousands on exercise machines.. right in the classroom). Superfluous, much? Of course, of course I’d love to peacefully protest and boycott this infringement of basic financial practicality. But.. seeing that everyone else was already playing around with the webcam and photobooth, just one question- should I make myself fisheyed, pop-arted or bulged? I love you, Steve Jobs (almost as much as Larry Page and Sergey Brin..almost)!