Fearful....

Could it be that my biggest fear is to hurt someone? I thought for a while that I was extremely paranoid about being judged...about not being liked, worse still, being disliked.. scared that I would loose dance.. scared of the dark and loneliness ... terrified of certain inexplicable phenomenon .. worried about my attachment to some people .. the list is unfortunately endless.

So when did I become one of those people who tremble at intimacy because they have become so unable to see a thing through that they might cause immense damage to the other involved? I find that I am not only fearful of the effect a night or a week or a month with someone might have on that someone but am perhaps even more unwilling to carry the weight of the guilt of hurting someone.

I wish it wasn't so complicated - standard dialogue in such situations - I know.But I haven't as yet learnt to seperate the emotional responsibility form the shared ecstasy.. and the moments of oneness from the next morning's seperation.

Where does intimacy cross over from being comfort to being pleasure? Is there anything damaging or unwise about engaging in either or both? Can it really be just 'fun' if its deep, tender and even beautiful....

I have no answers. I don't even think there are any.

Still not moving

Not all who wander are lost. What about those who flit? just flit..from here to there and there to here and then to somewhere else and here again...
What about if your flitting from the inside to the outside to above and beyond?
No difference really . My teacher talked not so long ago about the illusion of stillness. He posits the view that we are always, eternally and unarguably in motion. even if you die, there are molecules inside your physical body moving and shaping and re shaping themselves...even if you still those molecules you are in motion because the planet you are on rotates..
So stillness is unattainable . hmmm...
What about when you look at yourself in a real or emotional mirror and realize that in the last million years you have not moved. Not grown, not proceeded...not changed...
maybe like the planet...something larger is moving us always anyway..and therefore we are always growing, changing , proceeding...stilllness is impossible.
Still I like to close my eyes and imagine what it would be like.

SSSIIIMMMBBLLYY fried in the head

Its this feeling of wanting to escape to the past..or into a movie..or into love that allows me stay on here.. No, not just this feeling or urge but also the demented accompanying hope that it is possible.
I guess if you believe you can have something..or do something..of be a thing ,whatever that thing is... there is always the possibility..
And when your sleepy, so sleepy that you are also sad , these ridiculous dreams present themselves..these fantasies of escapism that make tomorrow ever so frighteneing.. that make the barrage of unanswerable questions so much more compelling than their non existent answers.
Why can't I get my timing right? to always meet someone when you can't have them and to want them when they have got used to not having you..
Will this feeling leave me? ..of not being enough just as i am..without kaajal, without heels, without a 13 hour workout..without more money? without a family or a man?or a lover..
Is my essential sunshine never going to return? I loathe the porous darkness that seems to have replaced it and shows no sign of leaving...I have forgotten how to cheer up..
Do i still love dance?.. can u really ever stop loving anything or anyone that you started loving?
Its like a marriage, my relationship with dance..I cannot live without it but I resent this now.. or is this all a case of complex projection- something else destroys me and someone else is accredited with the new version..discredited rather.
Is this city home? should i accept it...own it and surrender ...is it teaching me and strenghthening me or is this just destruction and futility..should i leave- would that be cowardice or purposefulness..
Is it really over with him or is this nagging sensation that it continues always a voice worth listening to? - how do I figure this out without sinking into some pit of gloom..gloom that stinks so much that no one can stand near me when i emerge from it..
Will I escape? -is it ok that i want to? who decides...

To sir with love

Recently I've been thinking alot about my Guru and what it must be like to have the vision and insight to perhaps really change the world..or at least a patch of its back garden, and yet be held down. This not being able to fly when one knows one is the few people who can must be excrutiating. I guess the antidote to the responsibility that comes with genius is humility. This humility, this humbleness is what perhaps allows him at some level to engage with the rest of the world.
He says time and again," You cannot change anyone else, if at all there is a change that can be made, it is in yourself.." and then under his breath"in yourself...if at all.
I have and often do feel rage and anger towards him. It is after all annoying to have his voice in my head when I binge or light a cigarette or drink too much. It is even more frustating to not understand his words or the image he is so desperately trying to convey.But it is immensely rewarding to be in his presence. I feel so priveledged.
Its an exiting scintillating sensation that feels like aliveness to feel deep love for someone while being given a subtle dressing down by him,to misunderstand him and his intentions only to be proved completely wrong by some tiny gesture he makes the next day and to smile and enjoy the liberating gush of foolishness and modesty that lifts me up and to know that at least for a small part of this life I have been chosen by life to intensely experience the stroke of a master.
I love you sir.

Excerpts of conversation from the train journey to Mangalore

He can't do anthing to me,I'm strong ..I just laugh in front of them..Straight- hair fringe, big big eyes..Anything to eat?..I have a spoon..wow...What are you?-What are you writing?...He's getting his head wet....I'll report her...Obedience, persevearance, discipline......Being grateful for the person who teaches...Words and values that get extinct...American value system... I have one orange in my bag somewhere... Yes,open it..OPEN..These are all american terms...Not hopping fro job to job..has been a country of rebels...I will not bow down to anybody..Everything is pretty and pink.. Did you see how it jumped on that guy?

Signal signal...just think ,this chicken has the power of ruling the world...Aaaah! nice well no?!...Keep the peels in your tea- this thing...Everyones walking around with bowls of red jelly..happy....Dreaming of you...Maybe your gonna be the one that saves.. The fire in your heart is out..AAIYYOOO!! there is no space..Smooth criminal.. haaay!! meri bindiyaan re...But i'll be needing the help of a local..they shoot each other...Bloody hell... Journey to the heart of the Zulu nation...They've made her horrible ...Just keep on bouncing baby...bachpan se ek aavaaz hamesha mujhse kehti thi ki mein ek actor banungi ......eesh! mein der kichoo bachlo na...

We gay couples..The sets and all are gorgeous na?...I am a bad boy.. thoda sa pagal...This is some funny thing..aawaaz hu mein..AWAAZ HU MEIN...sound that moves you..The 5 tribes that made up the confedaracy...there's no point... tum theek hotha tha...You wrote that also..I asked for my mobile phone...Why, they are still behind God?...Come on yaar

Just the regular existential worries..

I keep asking myself what this life is going to be about. Hope springs? faith? love? loss? joy?jealousy? (yes I do believe it exists,I just need to find it).. torment? team work? sickness? addictions? colour? great sex? not so great sex? desperate ,devouring loneliness? total denial? psychosomatic manifestations of subtler realities.. parasitic episodes of defence and fear..regret.. family.. friendship.. envy.. competition.. drama..regression.. repression.. performance.. scandal.. progress.. failure..growth.. success....

But these are all the ingredients..I could make so many things with oil,spices and meat and vegetables...What recipie will this life choose or reject.. What about the recipies it doesn't even know exist?

Day before yesterday , after the show something in me said goodbye to him.This pressing of a life changing button after a volcanic build up of childish neglect, a perverted form of rejection and I don't know how many negativities - this has happened before and it makes me so strong that I find myself pressing my insides hard enough to cure the pain with the pain.When did this dream become a mundane non-routine? How did I become so hyper soft on the inside so seemingly strong on the outside..?

My unhappiness has many disguises or maybe something else has found and projected a disguise called unhappiness. Everything seems to be going so smoothly and I can almost imagine someone asking me all the right questions and me delivering with aplomb the right answers.

I feel so stuck right now sitting here in the 4:30 am silence with not a sign of sleep and overtaken with binging. I feel - who would want someone like me? But the truth is alot of people do. I pray to the cosmos for the courage to do the right thing for me.. to be brave and face and diminish and then annihilate my fears- thay reside luxuriously and destructively in my mind. Hope is the evacuation team that will drive them out and faith the security service that will guard the gate thereafter.

I want this process to be peaceful and yet emotional .And I strive for these emotions to be energising not toxic and depleting.

fossils of an invalid love -letter

How about you dance with me every night?

How about after I spend the whole day dancing, I come home to you and really dance?..so that I can dance again in my sleep and wake up with a song to make me dance again all day..

In all this movement and stillness...in all this breathing and breathlessness there is you and then you and then you.

Sometimes you don't even know you but I see you's and they are every possible glorious manifestation of life's children..

Like a little boy ,like a big Papa...like a little Papa (a papa 'lilla')..like a big boy ..you inspire and agitate the life blood in me to live more life..My water centres whirl and burst and flow and trickle all at once..I can feel my colours form a rainbow around the moon and stand beneath it with you..

You can be my Jean Kelly and we can be 'singing in the rain' or my Humphrey Bogart and send warm currents down my spine every time you say "here's lookin at you kid"..and even my Shah Rukh Khan- throw your arms wide open to the sky and promise to be my deewaana forever.

Have you noticed how unabashedly insular this is..?..just like those mummys and daddys with their super-babies and those "us" "us" married couples! See what you do to me!

Dude you are my chick flick handsome 'kutta' and my sex bomb- all life long- dance partner and my jaan bachcha and scary papa (not always ! don't worry)...

I know you thinking "here she goes again asserting her unreal identities onto real old me"..but don't worry, we'll be magical and celestial as long as every day I'm curious to meet a you and brave enough to say goodbye to another you...and I am.. I am.. I so so am.

Cos you love me and I love you and that is really really something.

EMOTIONAL ATYACHAAR

I have decided that I will not allow myself anymore friendships that are not honest. When
I say honest I mean being able to really commuicate the uncomfortable stuff with an underlying faith in the intention of the other that allows one to be open to what they are suggesting.

Its very easy to use emotional blackmail. I find myself starting to looserespect for people who use certain phrases too often. I think "how can you do this to me?" tops the list, followed by "because of you...", "i never thought/did/felt...but you.." and so on. It is really quite easy to spot an emotional blackmailer but extremely difficult to say to them (and this has to be communicated at levels far out of reach of the tongue or words or voice) "I don't want to be in this situation WITH YOU " .Most blackmailers are exceedingly clever, they won't begin the blackmailing till they have already permeated deep into your being, captured your consciousness and stamped upon your will an indelible impression of their moral code. The idea is when you tell them how it is.. or how its not and the tools come out ,they don't look like weapons at all.These are no nuclear armaments or even granades,thay are beautifully rehearsed little peeps into how they now think of you - you are "so mean", "so rude"..."so selfish" and many more colorful adjectives all preceded by "SO" and of course you are immediately cast as the bad guy, the aggressor to this helpless victim who breaks down and is oh so innocent becuse they are willing to cry. The catch is ,you actually do give a shit!!! and this is the weapon they so deftly use, almost like the US in Afghanistan, defeating themselves with their preoccupation to save their misguided mision.

Its unrealisctic to say beware and dont fall for such persons..but thats crazy cos they are so very charming, have so much to offer and love is always a factor.

So how does one feel the love without the guilt, feel the empathy without being sucked dry of one's own energy and how the hell does one say "NO" or "i meant what said" to this melodamatic species of human who has won oscars for the role of 'victim' and whose self given moral title is a word not even coined except in her or his own head?
I atually wrote this a long time ago...looking back at it now it seems a bit too vehement and aggressive but i still mean what I say. There has to be a way to detect , im our social interactions, the game players, the games and the rewards and penalties of the human psychological network.All this has to be done only so that in our deficient human scale of perception 'love' is left pure...so that in all the confusion,ego conflict and power play, in all the respect or lack of it, the anger and the battle for space and bondage one recognizes that none of this matters in the realms of love. As I write this, I am still anrgy and bitterly dissappointed at my little personal emotional blackmailer ( the one who inspired this post)...but I cannot deny the surge of love I feel for her in spite of it all..an maybe even a little bit ,because of it!

I would like to go to sleep now

Is it common to feel blocked in your back ..in the upper region just behind your heart when someone breaks up with you?
Does almost everyone feel it manifest physically when they have been wondering how they will pay for their tomorrows?
Does a failed relationship find its way to the left side of your body?
Is it a universal habit to seek desperately a universality to your pain ..your patterns..your wierdness..your shame?
Can many of us actually find ways to stop crying that are not new promises of joy?
Can too many of us peacefully ask without being answered? and stay peaceful even if more questions beg to be put out there and no path to any solution reveals itself?
Do u remember God more when you are together or when your selves are being torn apart?
Can the person you love be the person who reduces you to the person you hate ?
Is it normal to be always in pain?
Is it more compelling a reality that demands to be written that is sad ?
Will i ever stop feeling like this?How long has it been?
Will i want to wear my red dress anytime this year? this lifetime?
Do i really want to ever marry...or will i punish myself for being poor always?
Can one rise above economics?
Will sleep come to me tonight.......

pain

It occurs to me that pain is a really strange thing..its definitely not as simple as a physical or mental or auric or psychological factor..it is all encompassing and once its there,it finds its way through every little gate,crack,crevice or gap it can get its eyes on. Of course, its ironic that i'm talking about pain like its this evil little foreign entity that attacks you...this , I am fast discovering is not entirely the case..

Pain and its relationship with us ,the way we navigate our functionalism and existence through it and the way that it manifests in parts of us that it has not originated from ( or we think it has not originated from) is a huge teller about how we live our lives and our relationships with our selves...

"pain pain go away come again another day".....escapism..but this is dangerous because in the karmic scheme of things this is inviting a veritable tsunami of neuron misbehaviour and giving liscence to something that you will later want to shoot yourself for creating..

"no gain without pain" - this im afraid is what alot of dancers including myself are afflicted with.. we wear our wounds like war medals and while my 16 year old body looked quite dashing with these medals (though i might say so myself)..my 26 year old one wears them like a gorilla would wear stilettos or more like a mouse would wear its trap after it has snapped...

"Pay attention to pain - listen to your body"...this is the new mantra..or maybe its the old mantra,the original wisdom that we so predictably see past/through or don't see..but really how many of us really adhere to this, whether its a dancer with a ligament sprain or an IT professional with shooting pain in the back... or we actually listen..are we really prioritising?The logic would run something like this though i suspect it is never so articulated.."which pain is easier to bear the ankle or the crashing wave of self doubt and existential angst that accopanies forced rest for those who are used to physical expression and a regular endorphin overdose?"...or "would i reather put up with stiff fingers and finish this project tonight or put up with a pain in the ass boss and loads of pressure?"

and now the ceaseless pain of not knowing..of putting these questions out there and recieving no answers,road maps or tour guides..only hints and clues that hide themselves most deviously or are somehow invisible to our strong goal-oriented wills that maybe offer possible solutions...

lastly.."pain is your friend"....i guess this makes some sense..understand it..talk to it..sit down with it and a cup of coffee and ask why it behaves so...give it time and attention..don't ignore it or try to get rid of it immediately..it is telling you something extremely important.If only it were really that simple.. goodbye! am off to pop a pain killer before my next performance!

I had a dream, more like an imagining yesterday..it goes like this, i wake up in a small room somewhere in Paris and its midnight.Im really irritated because i realise that i can't go back to sleep and i don't really want to read or do anything else. So i look out of the window and i see the Eiffel tower and i think to myself in India im never going to get a chance to actually walk on the street alone at midnight...i remember someone having told me that the Eiffel tower is a 1 hour walk from where i am...so i decide to go.

I start walking but i don't know the way so i find myself ambling through these tiny bylanes and just keeping my sight on the tower and going towards it. Sometimes im lost but then i wait and look for spaces between the buildings so i can find the bright shining vision that i am walking towards again..and i do, every time. The journey is really easy and Im not scared at all which is a somewhat rare thing for me these days...it occurs to me that in the day with all the light and distraction i cant really see the Eiffel Tower from my window..but in the night...

Its almost magical the way things reveal themselves in the dark..the symbolism of the moment does not escape me..im walking towards the light..and yet all thriough i am consious that there are stars in the sky but no moon..at some quiet unarticulated level i wonder where the moon is.. but suppose its just a no moon night..

Finally i reach my destination ..there i am ,standing beneath the tower looking up at it and soaking in the moment..the energy, the picture. Im aware that there are people on thes streets..not too many..just some young people spilling out of bars and cafe's..its all quite safe and calm.. theres this buzz in the air and i'm sort of transfixed..not really by the beauty of the vision before me..but at something larger. suddenly up in the sky behind the tower dark clouds part and reveal the brightest most glorious moon.. its huge ..magnificeint and its everywhere this moonshine that has me in suspended animation for the next quarter of an hour or so..i am aware of looking at something beyond the tower,the moon,the stars and the sky. my being is doing a dance that my body hasn't been able to imagine...parts of me leave my tiny body ,rush up into the night sky and the space between me and the tower and moon and tease me reminding me of my insignificance ,perching on the tower and showing me what i cannot do. I am filled with joy at the awareness of my limitations and of my infinity...the metaphor sinks in- the walking towards something only to suddenly discover something even more fulfilling..

After a while i become conscious of a presence, like someone is looking at me and i don't know what it is..so i abruptly turn around to almost bang into this guy who it appears has been standing behind me ,very close to me .He peers into my face..i cannot remember the details of his.. and he says "i've been watching you staring at this (and gestures in the direction of the spectacle that has had me so enthralled) and i had to ask you - were you looking at the moon or the Eiffel tower?".and i answer "neither" .he smiles and cheekily says "right answer" and asks if I'll have a coffee or a wine with him and i think to myself "one wine can't do much harm" and we go off to find a place to get a wine and some conversation....

This entire reverie played itself out while i was watching one of my favouritew movies 'under the tuscan sun' of which i never want to miss a word..but now,i found myself a little restless and end up flicking a button to change the channel.The image that greets me is of Chris tucker and Jackie Chan in 'rush hour 2' which i can never bring myself to watch ,being dragged around by the bad guy in some lake other kind of water body..behind them in the background is the foot of somethin quite familiar..the camera zooma out and behold! there it is the Eiffel tower!! I am elated,,its been ages since the cosmos really spoke to me..or ages rather since i've listened and understood.. just thought i'd write this down in case i forget it....

it doesn't really mean much..except that i'm ready- ready to heal, to begin, to end, to be, to really feel joy again.It doesn't really mean anything..except almost everything.

commitment to happiness

I think as artists and people and just adults we forget about our commitment to happiness...

so many of us are commited to other great desirables: independance, love,peace,education, mindfulness,awareness, fulfillment, success, society, family,friends, jobs and so on and so on..its almost like its part of our post-internet/cable tv/globalization/foriegn education sensibilty to look down just a little bit upon "living for the moment"...a term associated with chick fliks and feel good magazines..but this term is misinterpreted- we think it perpetuates an impulsive seeking of pleasure...but in fact it can be seen as pop lingo for some deep tenets of ancient spiritual knowledge banks such a zen buddhism which says- NOTHING COMES NEXT ,THIS IS IT! which in effect is an invitation to be so very present that it becomes impossible for the past or future to corrupt or intrude into ur now...make 'nowness' your only state..

so often we mistake pleasure for happiness- the other day i was having a conversation similar to the above with my best friend ..we came up with a metaphor...if a child wants a toy and you buy it for her, she experiences pleasure...but happiness is the general sense she will be surrounded and filled with when she's sittin on the floor in her room, playing with her toy next to her older brother who's having a chat on the phone with their parents in the next room watchin tv or doin something or even having a scrap...but this sense of being situated here surrounded by love,pleasure, peace and even conflict having a purpose or not..havin your own space or even navigating through anothers..just being..just existing- being included or being on the outside..being a part of this now and knowing that nothing can take away from the happening of this moment- this is happiness.

Much slower,much slower- there is a problem...

I was in front of you and now I'm not.

Through the Earth like a mole send your body so it returns to me..

I am only the particles you see in the sky from the sides of your eyes.

The shape of that body still occupies my spaces, still stimulates my muscles almost like inside me in the space between my breasts it dances its mind.

This mind has to get into every picture of sunny reality we allow.

Permission not seeked, life not lived, red not painted- how can we claim to follow the hallowed route to the musical jungle?

Something feels right- alot of it is in the bones. A hard feeling? A liquid sense? A blue place is where they are.