This is my favourite time of the year. The air smells of Neem blossoms (vepam poo in Tamil) and I am full of hope.
I am a child once again, spending my summer holidays eating musk melons smashed with jaggery.
I am alone in the house and afternoons are for reading and napping and dreaming in sentences.
It is March
In the upper leaves,
it is already next month.
I am still writing
yesterday’s poems, waiting for
clarity to come.
But yesterday is clotting,
next month won’t come down.
How do I live in the past
but write about tomorrow?This is from Victoria Chang’s ‘The Trees Witness Everything’ and I love the poet’s struggle with the flow of time. This confession — “I am still writing yesterday’s poems, waiting for clarity to come.” — is all too real for me and I often feel as if I’m wading against the tide. “In the upper leaves, it is already next month.” How to keep up time’s brute force?
And funnily enough, this poem below is slightly comforting. “I am half a second slower,” Yes indeed!
a honk behind me
a honk behind me
as the red light changes
to green…
I’m half a second slower
than my life
-Ken SlaughterI visited the Kochi Biennale a couple of weeks ago and found some interesting artwork on display. But mostly I witnessed the commodification of art. I think I covered a moderate portion of the biennale, stopping at some, skimming though the rest because I couldn’t consume after a point. A few months ago I found this Elena Ferrante interview where she talks about secularisation of literature and I feel to some extent, it can also be applied to art.
“I don’t like artists who imagine themselves shamans, and I would prefer that we definitively stop making the alphabet sacred, that we complete the secularisation of literature, that we stop feeling we’re just below the gods and directly inspired by them.”
I’ve been mulling on this topic for a long time and to my understanding, art can be split into three categories — art that is for everyone, art that is made for the artist and a third banal kind that’s made just for galleries and exhibit spaces. It is also the responsibility of the viewer to be able to make that distinction. To be aware of where the artist is coming from and what their intention could be.
Lives of the Artists
I brush my hair and
wonder if you're watching.
I write a word and
attach it to a speaker--
someone please listen.
Words come out of my coffin,
made of maple. when
empty, it will return to
the trees who speak to no one.
- Victoria Chang 
Pictured above: A frame from Tenzing Dakpa’s The Hotel, that I liked very much
things i’ve collected
These lovely outfits worn by Alana Haim in Liquorice Pizza (what an amazing film! Please watch if you haven’t already)
This brilliant poem by Julia Alvarez
How I Learned to Sweep
My mother never taught me sweeping. . . .
One afternoon she found me watching
t.v. She eyed the dusty floor
boldly, and put a broom before
me, and said she'd like to be able
to eat her dinner off that table,
and nodded at my feet, then left.
I knew right off what she expected
and went at it. I stepped and swept;
the t.v. blared the news; I kept
my mind on what I had to do,
until in minutes, I was through.
Her floor was immaculate
as a just-washed dinner plate.
I waited for her to return
and turned to watch the President,
live from the White House, talk of war:
in the Far East our soldiers were
landing in their helicopters
into jungles their propellers
swept like weeds seen underwater
while perplexing shots were fired
from those beautiful green gardens
into which these dragonflies
filled with little men descended.
I got up and swept again
as they fell out of the sky.
I swept all the harder when
I watched a dozen of them die. . .
as if their dust fell through the screen
upon the floor I had just cleaned.
She came back and turned the dial;
the screen went dark. That's beautiful,
she said, and ran her clean hand through
my hair, and on, over the window-
sill, coffee table, rocker, desk,
and held it up--I held my breath--
That's beautiful, she said, impressed,
she hadn't found a speck of death.This website called Looking for Lila (for all the Neapolitan Novels fans, yayy!) where you can sign up to go on a guided book tour around Naples (saving it for when I make that European tour (sigh))
This street-food guide (also Naples :P)
These puff-sleeved blouses
This recipe to roasted pepper walnut paneer (that someone could make for me)
And this artist whose style I love love
I wish you a lovely April. Write to you sooner. Or maybe you could write to me as well :)
Sending you vepam poo flavoured kisses.
Love,
A