ten things nine
1. she: and how do you show affection? me: mostly mending.
2. delicate trusts = keys of glass
3. excerpt: the village
after midnight, making candles by candle light with some boys from the village in an abandoned clinic. diwali is coming and shoving a wick in some cheap wax is a good way to turn a quick buck. pots of semi-refined paraffin and tea-flavored buffalo milk are rotated on and off the gas burner. what is your good name? you like music?india america
4. excerpt: mumbai
I took a wrong right turn into a web of paths and alleyways in which a neighborhood had been caught. A long lane cut through the center, curved just slightly so that I could never see the end of it, always promising an outlet but never delivering, swallowing me whole as I ventured deeper and deeper. I collected stares as I walked. A man appeared in a doorway as I passed and I heard him retch behind me. One man scraped at another man's face with a long straight razor. Women lit candles and gingerly placed them in the tricked out wooden boxes which house the elephant-headed, multi-armed, neon-skinned gods to whom they pray and sing and ring small bells. After ten minutes of walking I was convinced that this road would never end. I doubled back on my path, stepped over a little pool of vomit, saw the cleanshaven man and the holy candles now snuffed out, the dirty blessings of their smoke falling into the piles of fruit peels and broken bluegreen glass on the ground below.
5. excerpt: the village
After dinner we all sat in a circle on the roof. I was glad when the power went out and took the terrible fluorescent light with it. Someone lit a candle and then used it to light incense. In the distance singing women carried torches to the creek to hunt for crabs. Quiet bugs winged their way to the candle. A hush. The host and hostess each sang a prayer, his in Hindi, mournful and long, hers in Marathi, bright and buoyant, and then it became clear that it was my turn. ‘Don’t worry, Joke (no one can say my name right, but I just roll with it). You can sing one in English, we don’t mind,” Ankit whispered in my ear. Joke nodded and pretended to be relieved at his host’s concession. My smile lied to him - “Phew, English. Great. Because my Hindi is a bit rusty and your wife just sang the one that I was going to do and it’s really the only Marathi one that I know so, great - an English one then.”
For some reason every little prayer song I had learned in Sunday School had fallen out of my head, probably somewhere between Springdale and Memphis, between 16 and 22, between wearing matching Christmas sweaters and not being home for Easter. The thought of making up a prayer and putting it to some sort of tune on the spot was shy-making - I blushed in the darkness. Hands around me began to unfold and eyes snapped open, searching me, trying to decipher the reason for my hesitation. They didn't know that the only song I could think of was Purple Rain, which had been stuck in my head all day. People began to bob their half-smiling heads at me in encouragement. The women in the distance sang so easily. A moth singed its wings on the candle. I thought that Prince might be vaguely inappropriate and actually quite difficult to sing, especially acca pella, especially that part at the end after the guitar solo, the high pitched part where he goes ‘Hooo hoo hoo-ooh-ooh’ - and dear God, everyone was still staring at me. The moth was writhing in the dark circle that surrounded the base of the candle. I wracked my brain for another song and started singing as soon as a tune entered my head.
These are the days of miracle and wonder
this is the long distance call,
the way the camera follows us in slo-mo,
the way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that is dying in the corner of the sky -
these are the days of miracle and wonder
and don’t cry baby, don’t cry.
and everyone said amen, as you do after a prayer that is said in English. Even, I learned that night, after a prayer © Paul Simon.
6. janis joplin's me and bobby mcgee
7. i posit: personal space and amnesty are inversely related
proof: when 22 people are riding in a public jeep and every surface is covered in human and the driver swerves sharply to avoid hitting a glitter-horned, hot pink cow standing in the road and everyone grabs (gropes) blindly at whatever is in their reach in order to stabilize themselves - all is immediately forgiven when the jeep rights itself.
8.
9.
10. the interplay between necessity and luxury - a life that necessitates art / an art that necessitates life - a muchness - drawings: 1) rows of plowed earth, 2) the packed-dirt path to the stream, 3) the trails our fingers leave on our silver plates as we scoop wet rice into our mouths with our hands
2. delicate trusts = keys of glass
3. excerpt: the village
after midnight, making candles by candle light with some boys from the village in an abandoned clinic. diwali is coming and shoving a wick in some cheap wax is a good way to turn a quick buck. pots of semi-refined paraffin and tea-flavored buffalo milk are rotated on and off the gas burner. what is your good name? you like music?
4. excerpt: mumbai
I took a wrong right turn into a web of paths and alleyways in which a neighborhood had been caught. A long lane cut through the center, curved just slightly so that I could never see the end of it, always promising an outlet but never delivering, swallowing me whole as I ventured deeper and deeper. I collected stares as I walked. A man appeared in a doorway as I passed and I heard him retch behind me. One man scraped at another man's face with a long straight razor. Women lit candles and gingerly placed them in the tricked out wooden boxes which house the elephant-headed, multi-armed, neon-skinned gods to whom they pray and sing and ring small bells. After ten minutes of walking I was convinced that this road would never end. I doubled back on my path, stepped over a little pool of vomit, saw the cleanshaven man and the holy candles now snuffed out, the dirty blessings of their smoke falling into the piles of fruit peels and broken bluegreen glass on the ground below.
5. excerpt: the village
After dinner we all sat in a circle on the roof. I was glad when the power went out and took the terrible fluorescent light with it. Someone lit a candle and then used it to light incense. In the distance singing women carried torches to the creek to hunt for crabs. Quiet bugs winged their way to the candle. A hush. The host and hostess each sang a prayer, his in Hindi, mournful and long, hers in Marathi, bright and buoyant, and then it became clear that it was my turn. ‘Don’t worry, Joke (no one can say my name right, but I just roll with it). You can sing one in English, we don’t mind,” Ankit whispered in my ear. Joke nodded and pretended to be relieved at his host’s concession. My smile lied to him - “Phew, English. Great. Because my Hindi is a bit rusty and your wife just sang the one that I was going to do and it’s really the only Marathi one that I know so, great - an English one then.”
For some reason every little prayer song I had learned in Sunday School had fallen out of my head, probably somewhere between Springdale and Memphis, between 16 and 22, between wearing matching Christmas sweaters and not being home for Easter. The thought of making up a prayer and putting it to some sort of tune on the spot was shy-making - I blushed in the darkness. Hands around me began to unfold and eyes snapped open, searching me, trying to decipher the reason for my hesitation. They didn't know that the only song I could think of was Purple Rain, which had been stuck in my head all day. People began to bob their half-smiling heads at me in encouragement. The women in the distance sang so easily. A moth singed its wings on the candle. I thought that Prince might be vaguely inappropriate and actually quite difficult to sing, especially acca pella, especially that part at the end after the guitar solo, the high pitched part where he goes ‘Hooo hoo hoo-ooh-ooh’ - and dear God, everyone was still staring at me. The moth was writhing in the dark circle that surrounded the base of the candle. I wracked my brain for another song and started singing as soon as a tune entered my head.
These are the days of miracle and wonder
this is the long distance call,
the way the camera follows us in slo-mo,
the way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that is dying in the corner of the sky -
these are the days of miracle and wonder
and don’t cry baby, don’t cry.
and everyone said amen, as you do after a prayer that is said in English. Even, I learned that night, after a prayer © Paul Simon.
6. janis joplin's me and bobby mcgee
7. i posit: personal space and amnesty are inversely related
proof: when 22 people are riding in a public jeep and every surface is covered in human and the driver swerves sharply to avoid hitting a glitter-horned, hot pink cow standing in the road and everyone grabs (gropes) blindly at whatever is in their reach in order to stabilize themselves - all is immediately forgiven when the jeep rights itself.
8.
9.
10. the interplay between necessity and luxury - a life that necessitates art / an art that necessitates life - a muchness - drawings: 1) rows of plowed earth, 2) the packed-dirt path to the stream, 3) the trails our fingers leave on our silver plates as we scoop wet rice into our mouths with our hands
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