Squirrel

"All this had happened so often, both in dream and reality, that I could no longer separate one from the other. Neither did it seem all that important to do so. It was a fact that the pages crumbled and fell into pieces beneath my fingers. A fact that the crumbling bits stuck to my fingers...But this happened many times, both in dreams and in reality. that's why I didn't try to separate the two. When I was sure I was dreaming, the electric fan would suddenly stop and I would find myself bathed in sweat. Certain that it was real, I would raise a book in order to smell it, be awakened by the raindrops splashing on to my face through the open window. I didn't worry about it. Isn't it possible that some relationships should extend from dreams into reality, the others be spillover from reality into dream?"


-Ambai, Squirrel, originally published as Anil, October 1986

Mumbling #14

There should be background music playing all the time.
Sweet and low on some days,
Deafeningly loud on others.
Boom boom booming.
Drowning your words,
Letting me look into your eyes better.
And the strange way your lips twitch.
Boom boom boom.
Words can only say so much, you know.


Now Playing:
Youth by Daughter
Thank you Shiromi

Browning says,

It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least
...Art-wherein man nowise speaks to men,
Only to mankind-Art may tell a truth
Obliquely, do the thing that breed the thought,
Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word

So we'll use it a little. To form shapes in clouds and tiles in the toilet. To form creative lies. To find half-truths. To find the other dimension. Without turning into drug addicts of course. And then we'll smile a little.

But thank you.
It's a fucking relief.

Maybe you'll get what you wanted

I want a library of my own. One that smells of old wood and paper. Where sunlight peeps through windows, sometimes falling on faces of strangers. Making them seem familiar. I want a big jet plane, the windows of which I could roll down and put out my head to taste a cloud or two. I want to put every beautiful song I hear in a locket that I could wear. I want an imagination so vivid, that I could draw my own paradise and live in there forever. Maybe get lost in a city I never saw before. Trod though streets in my pretty shoes and never retrace my steps again. I created my bubble after that night. Told you I had got what I wanted. So nothing could break my world. No one could take my moment. I've wanted lots of things. I always have. You gave me a closure. Perhaps I wanted that too. For now, my pillow will do.

Maybe you'll get what you wanted
Maybe you'll stumble upon it
Everything you ever wanted
In a permanent state

Maybe you'll know when you see it
Maybe if you say it, you'll mean it
And when you find it you'll keep it
In a permanent state, a permanent state

Mumbling #13

There is something supremely wonderful about home. No matter who you are with outside, no matter who you are outside, at home you’re still the mundu, running around doing chores in old and funny looking clothes. There is something supremely wonderful about getting hair oiled by your mother or grandmother. They comb your hair and then put it in a braid. And you feel like such a good girl, again.