behenji blows...her nose

cough. sputter. haaaaachooo! the little bohemians are down too. cough cough.

vasudhaiv kutumbakam-the whole world is one family

little cultural amazements, nostalgic twangs of home in this sultry suburb of california. the other day after dropping the kids at school, i was walking home and chanced upon two old indian men waiting at the bus stop. as they were chatting, i heard strains of Omkarnath Thakur and looked around to see where it was coming from. There in one man's hand was a tape recorder. both gentlemen were nodding and smiling and talking while a beautiful raaga became the background score for life in America, for this small bustop next to the railroad tracks. i realized then how home is a state of mind that you can carry with you everywhere.

then this morning, a stone's throw from the bus stop, a man was wheeling in his garbage can after trash collection, whistling a very catchy 'tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam.' without realizing it, i started humming the song and couldn't stop.

why do these little things touch me so much? why do they comfort me? and yet i feel this is what life boils down to. where all the answers can be found. this is what i want to capture in my words, my verse. this joy for all things simple. finding love in living, in all living things. from rotten peaches hanging to unripe lemons and apples, to the stray brown cat that sits in front of our house every evening, and to the humming birds that eat our figs.

i think it is neccesary to be humbled by nature, to realize/feel greater forces at work and most of all to feel the world is one big family.

proof of poetry

yes, i am actually going to post a poem. proof that behenji churns out poems, gets hand cramps from spinning the wheel.

poetry poachers beware: you can call the words yours, but you can't steal the mind they came from! enjoy!

FEAR OF FLOWERS

In one hand
angry violets
And in the other
a Kukri knife
glowing green
of fresh floral kill

the flowers are for myself
my pleasure, my eyes
you say, holding them
a little too tight
and now your hands
green
smell faintly
of death
as you hold our faces
kiss us goodbye

two men and a tree

walking home this afternoon after picking up my son from pre-school, i came upon two chinese men perched on the sidewalk. i could tell they were gardeners from their wide brim hats and the pickup parked at the curb with garden tools jutting out. they had a bucket of some sort and i thought they were pulling weeds with their hands. as i came closer i saw it was a plastic cooler. on top of the cooler were two porcelain bowls and in the gardeners' grass stained hands chopsticks. the two looked so tranquil under the shade of a tree: eating, smiling, talking...and so at home while far away from home. i felt like i was watching a poem go by.

and the nobel prize in literature goes to...

a woman!!!!! yay!!! women rock!!! and because women aren't recognized enough in awards. no, i am not a thong burning feminist. but there is a certain amount of inequality that goes unacknowledged. anyway, cheers to this very worthy Austrian author.

and the sky went rattapallax

rattapallax made me do a doubletake: for the word itself, which is is Wallace Steven’s onomatopoeia for “thunder” and for the magazine/website/press published by Ram Devineni, which is doing/has done some wonderful work, especially in honor of Pablo Neruda's 1ooth birthday-a book, a documentary, and a pilgrimage of sorts to isla negra.

Behenji was inspired to pen a few words after reading about the trip to isla negra:

From ISLA NEGRA REVISITED

yesterday, a third of a century after
did you imagine they would circle
your house
clockwise
like Hindus circling
a temple

but seriously, behenji wants to write a novel!

i do. i do. full of music, rebellion and realization. from the cold frost of the midwest to the edge of the ganges. behenji has been ruminating big time. in the process i have also decided to arm myself with the write oops right tools:
pencils-for chewing on
scratched laptop (made to resemble old tattered notebook)
loud ticking alarm clock-to throw when experiencing writer's block
two noisy children-excuse for not being able to finish above mentioned novel.

behenji dares you: 50,000 words in a month

national novel writing month is november...or atleast it is for the folks at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ every year they ask pen wielding, plotting, peoples like myself to experience the joys of actually finishing a novel. behenji is so tempted...

how do you write?

i saw this postcard advertising an online workshop:

WRITE NAKED

computer required, clothing optional

yeah, like that's really going to happen.

but it got behenji thinking...do writers really have writing habits that are that varied?

i know vikram seth writes in bed and i believe hemingway only wrote standing up. i write sitting at my kitchen table, which i believe many others do too. but before i come to the table, my house has to be clean. dishes must be in place, each sock must be folded. all papers must be filed alphabetically and so that is why, dear friends, i am still on page one of my first novel.

so how do you write? what are your quirks? behenji wants to know...

an exercise in narcism

googled behenji and found the following (which i have paraphrased for more pleasure):

wah behenji! (the title of a new comedy on zee tv?)
behenji: the bane of brahmins (i love this, especially since i am one! behenji as caste rebel?)
the last behenji standing (behenji joins the wwf)
the behenji and the bitch (a twisted tale of behenji and lassie)
to behenji with love (behenji retires as a teacher after 30 years. no sequel i promise)
behenji brigade indo-asian news service (apparently it exists)
behenji's boys bristle (what can i say? )

and in the end: The behenji is modern (BIM) now but not ashamed of her Indianness...

more grist for the blogging mill

how blogs are changing the way we read. me thinks we need new glasses and a more back-friendly chair after all the cyber-voyeurism! an excerpt:

It's way premature to say that literary blogs have supplanted the established media (just as it would be to say Drudge is a better news source than the networks' websites). But it's reasonable to call them old media's stealth competitors, because they draw a young and educated demographic that advertisers desire. Their audiences are not immense, but established blogs like Bookslut claim a respectable 3,000 hits a day.

I think this is amazing. I just dived into blogging/blog reading a month or so ago and am amazed at the energy, intelligence and ideas that are out there. and all from the comfort of your keyboard. i won't be surprized to hear a song down the line called 'bloggers killed the nyt book review.' (if you don't get it, its ok. its from an old 80s song.)

more from the same article:
Will literary bloggers eventually trump the traditional book reviewer? I think everyone spends far too much time fretting about the various media and their influences. Clearly, each has its own strengths and weaknesses. And in all cases, certain personalities emerge with more influence than others. In radio, it's the curmudgeon Don Imus who has the power to send books up the bestseller list. On television, it's the all-embracing Oprah. In newspapers, it is the cover of the New York Times Book Review that is said to influence book sales. The Internet surely will also eventually produce its own version of Imus, Oprah, and the NYTBR -- without necessarily diminishing the other media book-promoting stars.I, for one, am cheering on the literary bloggers. Books need all the support they can get.

this bookish bohemian couldn't agree more!

a luminous kinda gal

the pull of domesticity has kept behenji away from blogging--but not from ruminating. aww hell, the dishes can wait a bit. there have been some very interesting discussions on another subcontinent on the luminousity of poets and the need to innovate more in Indian poetry in English. To me the Asian subcontinent is so lush in its day to day life, yet I feel our poetry doesn't aptly reflect this. I have always encountered spirituality, mysticism or a certain abstractness in general in english poets writing from India. those that do immigrate to the west get trapped between the folds of two different worlds and are often found beating their chest in hopes that their true identity will pop out. somehow it all seems contained. no one wants to leap off the page.

i hope this changes. maybe poetry doesn't seem important enough for most purveyors of literature and for people in general. the asian subcontinent has such a beautiful tradition of poetry and its evolution should continue...as far as poetry is concerned i think we need to keep reinventing the wheel.

hooked by the book: and the nominees are...

yes friends, the list has arrived. behenji has never heard of these writers but is willing to bet they are all good. drum roll please:

Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor
The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Master by Colm Toibin
I'll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward


behenji is reading michael ondaatje right now, the english patient, recipient of the booker prize in 1992, and has come to the following conclusion: he is one of the most gifted writers of the english language. more in my next post.

maroon5: infectious pop

my daugher and i were watching the world music awards when maroon5 came on. behenji was suddenly transported back into the 80s longing to be a teenager again. a little billy joel, a little stevie wonder and jamiroqoi rolled into one. a funky backstreet boys? maybe. but i like them.

literary blogging: too elitist?

yesterday, mr.sochvichar (www.sochvichar.blogspot.com) said i should use my writing skills for the greatest good of the greatest number. this can also be read as :'i don't understand your poetry' and 'you use very big words.' the poem in question : i'm sir vidia's teacup!

'but i enjoy writing about literature.' i told him. 'and then what about your blog?' i counteracted. 'i mean what in the name of yahweh is 'user centric focus' and 'institutional management.' i would rather peel off wallpaper or lick stamps than read about that;)

anyway, the question of art as activism or writing as a political act has always been there. i'm of the school that writing is a political act, if for no other reason than you are capturing/reinterpreting/representing/translating an experience of some sort, real or imagined.

amardeep singh has an interesting blog (http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/blog.html september 11, 2004) on academic blogging.

i mean how seriously should/shouldn't we take blogging? i think it goes beyond that. for some its an online diary, for others its a veritable cyber playground for one's thoughts. i think for voyeurs of arts & letters, its license to peep through peoples windows and then introduce yourself saying, 'oh, so that's how you look naked! wanna see how i look?'

anyway, behenji is committed to the arts, and in doing so, i try to be as altruistic as possible. for now, that's my greatest good for the greatest number.

i'm sir vidia's teacup

the title of this post is inspired by the image of sir vidia at home in the wiltshires, drinking darjeeling as nadira goads him lovingly with her wit and wisdom. i think they make a wonderful couple. at least that's what comes across in this article (click on post title behenjis & bhaisahibs!).

for your reading pleasure, an exercise in excruciatingly bad rhyme (read with a whince and grimace at your own risk):

SIR VIDIA'S TEACUP
if i were sir vidia's teacup
what would i be?
white bone?
gilded?
primrose?
filligree?

if i were sir vidia's teacup
how would i feel?
scalding ?
steaming?
tepid?
chilly?

would i be half empty?
would i be half full?
would earl grey
get shunted
by darjeeling's pull?

would crumbs from a scone
sink to the bottom?
would brandy be added
to combat the autumn?
would nadira's lipstick
be on the rim?
would i be thrown against
the wall on a whim?

would i be relished
like a thirsty beggar?
would i be jilted
like a one night lover?
would i be knighted
sir of cups?
or used for
measuring
sugar up?

i am sir vidia's tea cup
and this is what i say:

have you had your tea today?

Queen of Dreams lulls behenji to sleep

i recieved Divakaruni's latest novel in the mail last week and decided to bite the bullet and read it. While i think Chitra is a wonderful person and a very conscientious writer, I just can't seem to like her novels. In fact, what pleased me most after reading Queen of Dreams was the hope that I too have a shot as a novelist.

the seed of the story: rakhi, a divorced artist living in Berkeley California, with a young daughter, whose mother reads and interprets dreams, learns to negotiate her relationships with her past and present. throw in a cool DJ ex-hubby, an alcoholic dad who turns around, a sardaarni best friend and a rebellious young child torn between two parents and two catastrophic events: mother's demise and 9/11. oh, and cameo appearances from a elusive, yoga practicing, fast car driving, spirit/muse called emit maerd. 1 mississippi 2 mississippi 3 mississippi... did you guess it yet? emit maerd=dream time. we did stuff like this in grade school, but to see it in a novel that is supposed to be serious, for an audience of adults, was a real let down.

the book is vey wordy, with long descriptive sentances. there are some pure shots of poetry inbetween though, which if taken out of the book, would stand on their own beautifully.

It's evening, the blue hour of gathering shadows.

why, oh why, chitra, did you stop writing poetry????

did emit maerd just say money? fame?

To me queen of dreams read like notes of that novel that divakaruni will write. yes, there are notes in it, in the form of a dream journal, that verge on interesting but then somehow become dense:

first, follow this man, for he is either a spirit guide or a demon. in either case, trick him into speaking to you. that is how you establish power over him. ask him the question foremost in your mind. his answer may transform your life. but most importantly, do not lose him. more instructions will be given to you next year, when you have learned enough to understand such subtleties.

subtlety, as you can see is not behenji's strong point. behenji would have passed with third division marks at dream school.

behenji wants to say more but has to tend to a growling stomach. but what to do with the hungry mind? somebody somewhere better be writing a novel that will make behenji weep and sing.

v.s. nightfall:)

was googling west indian poet derek walcott when my eagle eye spotted this from an article in the guardian:

Even the poet Derek Walcott, who took the Nobel Prize in 1992 and who expressed a widespread West Indian hostility towards his fellow-writer in the character of 'VS Nightfall', has conceded that he is 'our finest writer of the English sentence.

boom kaboom noises in the dead of night

while panditji snored softly in Minnesota, behenji was rudely awakened in california at 3:32 am by a loud thud. our house is old and since it's a rental, it's not exactly updated, if you know what i mean. i hear sqeaks from doors and windows, the floor groans on ocassion, tiles do crack under behenji's heavy feet but that's not all...when we flush the toilet, it sounds as if a jet is about to take off...no exaggeration.

well last night it was none of those things. i got up muttering to myself why PJ had to be out of town when stuff like this happened, heard the loud ticking of the wind-up alarm clock which panditji would like to throw in the pacific ocean, looked at conan o brian laughing at me through the telly and waited for a thief to rob our threadbare house.

when that didn't happen i dozed off only to be rudely awakened by the alarm clock which i wanted to now throw into the pacific. the tv, which i kept on whole night, reported a small earthquake literally next door.

i looked outside and saw my daughter's bike lying on its side and put two and two together (yes behenji does that occasionally).

earthquakes are an everyday reality here. at school, my daughter and her classmates all have disaster relief kits in their classrooms with bottled water, power bars, an insulated blanket and flares. parents are advised that in the case of an earthquake we should not rush to the school premises to find our child.

thankfully, the tremors are usually small, but they are a daily occurence in california. one which only seismologists pay attention too. no one reads that corner of the paper (at least i don't) where the quakes are listed in all its scaley glory.

the first time we came to california, we were having dinner at a friend's place when the windows started rattling. knock, knock, we are the spirits of mission san jose. then the dining table shook as if our dinner were a seance. for a second we all froze with fear. and then we all matter-o-factly said 'its just an earthquake.' Much in the same manner a Minnesotan says, 'oh it's only 12 inches of snow or it's only minus five out there, now bundle up.'

was behenji scared? not after she recited the hanuman chalisa;)

pixel not so perfect: microsoft goes to geography school

from an article on c/net:

When coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft colored eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed Kashmiri territory. The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian, and the product was promptly banned in India. Microsoft was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 operating system software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds.

but that's not all:

The software giant managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game in which Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques. That game was also withdrawn.

and then:

Microsoft has also managed to upset women and entire countries. A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation.

talk about lost in translation;)