THE CLOUD PEOPLE ARE COMING

for a healthy life, say goodbye!

52

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yaws over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd
wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

favourite scene from chungking express, a toss up between faye wong's magic-clean love and the narrow alleys of tsim sha tsui where indians gargle cantonese and hindi in the same oral cavity -- days when tony leung was most beautiful, most winsome. milking the nus library resources to the max, too many books and films and worlds to escape to, me in second-handed earphones never knowing how to operate the dvd machines

days walk themselves into a wild frenzy, and the nights are too short. i met a professor who staunchly disbelieves in technology, who does not own a phone. she said she was free, almost too wistfully, then added that she would not be the sucker who answers her phone on the first ring, the sucker to whom work will be delegated to...would not be at the beck and call of a prison cell number, an identification of seven numerals in a row. she sounded sad at the end of the sentence, and someone faced her and said, i heard you do not sleep -- i heard you answer emails promptly even at three am. to which she laughed, and said but she would not ever own a phone, and she doesn't watch tv. somewhat sadly, but maybe i imagined it -- can't get her grown-up-and-old hands out of my mind's eye, sad staid digits, the sort she'll never be.

I did it, I silenced us. I watched a play last night about two lovers who shared a history of no history, a lifetime of missed opportunities and mistakes in two hours. It made me cry. I could only do this because I'm in India, and she is a lover more consistent than any goddamn boy. Mostly because it is one-sided.

I'm getting a peek into India's journalism scene, into the life of stories, the cheat codes behind it-- the whos and the hows, the names I'll never be familiar with. I would make a bad fixer. It grows increasingly difficult to commit to any one lifestyle-- it is like religion-- putting time energy and resources into one community. Can't do it, need to always be sitting on the fence, watching the world on an uncomfortable perch. Can't go for events year after year, can't pray to the gods that send photographers crawling on their knees along Nariman Point risking their life for a newsworthy photo. It's all very fascinating, but everything is, for two months. I'll switch up jobs every two months then, find myself in Ladakh in three.

my space loyalty ends here. advertisements, html illiteracy, need to pay to do anything, and the font in this box tires me. took me long enough-- celebrating my livejournal centenary by digging up the old wordpress i used to have the occasional affair with, so i'll be there:

uncurl.wordpress.com

ms gopalakrishnan, even better all day on raaga.com




tonight was full of fingers and wrists, and a graceful neck. boys in the right colours. most amazing weather in months. not sure why i keep typing, just waiting for the day to end and this book to read itself

woke up this morning with a terrible sadness that looks like a moth. brown, spotty, still on a wall.

music memory is most powerful of all. tonight koc reminded me of everything good that has ever happened to me, made me feel like i was on a train rushing to malaysia again. early morning in my mouth, in love and tentative. the week long sadness i couldn't shrug off. that night i watched a girl with skinny limbs dance from afar, arms hanging with an awkward grace i wished i had. we pretended to be statues frozen in ballroom dance pose, any excuse to touch. before i went to bed he drew a song on my face with a black ink pen-- i know these lyrics better than my own national anthem.

some days the only thing better than one bowl of curd and sugar is two bowls of curd with sugar, two salted caramel chocolate tarts, and a chocolate butter cake. make that any day, every day