New Crap

So I have a lot of new crap. I mean I am just saying that, I am truly delighted to be the owner of material possessions.
Except it comes with worries like : Oh, I need home insurance!! Oh I need to keep things clean. Earlier while living in serial killer's basement there were no such worries. Screw the dirt, the dust, dump everything everywhere. TBH, I am a fairly tidy person. I keep my clothes, bags, shoes organized. Book-most definitely, yes! But now I am an extra tidy person! Anyway, I love the new apartment. I can see the Hancock tower/ observatory which is a big deal I am guessing since everyone is very excited about this place. I just don't understand this craze for the skyline view. I nod along when someone oohs and aahs over it but really I would prefer some boring nice trees any day. I also can't muster much enthusiasm for top of the tower views. Okay, lot of lights and the cars look like ants.. Now? And I noticed this time in Istanbul, I went to the Galata Tower and there was a lot of hustle and bustle and it was sunset and no one was looking at the sunset but clicking gazilion pictures. While I will admit to being a non stop click-er of photos but mostly people and faces, I was quite surprised at how no one seemed to even pause a second to look at the actual sun set. I took two customary shots and they were bad. Maybe because they have fascinating cameras because they were all lugging big ones. I admit I glared/ snarled nastily when someone pushed me as I pondered "deep meaningful thoughts" in a corner. :/

So THE APT: There is lot of space for A and I not to be in each others way which right now is a very good thing because we are at each others throats all the time. The moving,U-hauling, unloading, assembling is clearly bringing out the worst in us! :/ who ever thought furniture could lead to so many fights. But somehow the fights get personal. It becomes- you are this kind of a person which is why this doesn't work, and you- you are blah blah. And so on.
For some reason A is also suddenly losing things everywhere! He lost his CTA pass and those little buggers are expensive and then he lost his wallet! Thankfully the grocery store man was an honest man who kept it away and he found it. So well.
But tomorrow is Easter and I am hoping to put all the unnecessary, well not exactly entirely unnecessary, jostles and jolts aside and make a decent lunch and now that our internet is set up, we can watch a movie-maybe.

Next week on I will start applying for internships and submitting. So not looking forward to that but you got to do what you got to and so on.

And meanwhile: we are saving 10bucks every month on condoms :D

There never was any innocence

When people/adults stumble into the sexual lives of their children/ younger generation and find themselves "confuzzled" often there is a reference made to the "good old days of innocence" which just makes no sense ever to me. Like to when exactly are you referring? Maybe a three year old? Even that is hard to understand because I have seen three year olds rub themselves at the edges of chairs and on pillows and so on. I remember some of my most not- innocent states as when I was a child and feeling horny-there is really no better way to put this- and not entirely sure what to do with it.

I will let you in on a small secret now.

So it so happened that when we were young our summers were always in our ancestral house, sprawling with people, cousins, visitors etc. And because of this reason the elders were always careful to keep one eye, sometimes both eyes on children. Girls and boys playing too close was frowned upon. I still remember we invented the dark room game, of course we didn't invent it because other children across everywhere were also inventing similar games at same time periods. So in dark room basically everyone is shut in a room and then you count till a certain number and then you just start wildly groping! Whoever you 'catch' becomes the next 'it'. What you are supposed to win or do or whatever was never quite clear. You can see where this is going.

So somehow the elders discovered our happy grope and put an end to it! Now. I was never really into any of the boys, they seemed silly and largely ignorant. I was however into a girl. And this became my first sexual encounter and it continued for years from when we were say 12 to a the ripe old age of 22.
What now seems funny though is the fact that these elders were always so careful to keep boys and girls apart that it never once occurred to them to keep an eye on some girl and girl action! Ha. This makes me very happy and victorious!

I won't go into the specifics of it since it really doesn't mean much anymore but she was my first kiss, the first person I saw naked and I did love her a lot. And her body was a huge comfort  and source of excitement and together we were happy and gleeful and charged and dizzy to discover everything that could be done then and it left us a little less confused.

The funny bit however is that even though every summer I knew what would happen with her was a given and I did have a boyfriend at some point, it never occurred to me that whatever was happening with her could be factored into cheating on said boyfriend. If anything the boyfriend was the secret that needed to be  kept from her because after all I was with her for a decade and he was just the newcomer. But she did find out. I had a few... 'love bites'-oh lord!' and she, she looked shocked and mumbled something and that was the end of that. We never speak of it since then. Of course she went onto get married and have a child and all that. There have been a few more girls since her but nothing that meant anything.

I have wondered if I am gay, but then I love the male body just as much as the female. Once my friend told me, pick a side! and I thought, do I really have to pick a side? But I suppose I did pick one by getting married. Often I am attracted to a girl. And not in a "she is cute, I have a crush' -I don't think I should be allowed to say crush anymore!--way but more like a startling, I want to kiss this girl on the mouth, but then I feel that occasionally about a few men too.  Although these days I never meet anyone since I am holed up and mostly just in the company of books. Well, I digress.

What I am coming to is that there really isn't such a thing as the "innocence of children' at least not sexually. There is always some form or some avenue through which children explore their sexuality and except for the angle of safety I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.

Read this article from where all the pondering came from.
Of course I am not denying the other angles to this: the peer pressure, and the giving it away because you think that is the only thing you have on offer but somehow these things seem to have other roots to consider.
For e.g in the article states that children were having oral sex in order to move up some kind of imagined/real social ladder and I am sure there is some truth in that. Although it seems vastly different from my growing up period where not to named a slut was the ultimate goal even as you scratched itches. But see this is exactly how it is. This seems a bit alien to me; the fact that school children have sexual ladders to climb but I make my peace with it. Because even though sex as a performance came for me much later, for these kids, its arrived in a different form perhaps and earlier. And while it's not to be encouraged there is also no running away from it.

I really don't have any conclusion to offer or any kind of statement to make.
Except that I feel sorry for children sent away to psychologist's office to find out "what is wrong with them" and therapy, really? For oral sex? Christ!!  I really feel like it's time parents had some kind of pysch help with understanding the sex lives of children and how normal it is to feel horny! To what extent this kind of shaming will affect kids remains to be seen. And I am sure, I AM FUCKING SURE that the boy in these scenarios will go away scot free, no pych visits  no what- the- fuck -is wrong with you, nothing.

Chicago

All right so since he wont blog about it, I shall. A and I are moving to Chicago end of this month. The PhD is almost done ( defense left) and we are not students anymore but "responsible adults"! :D One can hope! But seriously, yay us! I was so super scared I was going to end up in Kalamazoo or Bethesda or some place in the "middle of nowhere" that even liberal white people find difficult to adjust to and so there is no way A and I could have been happy in a town with nothing to do --the kind of things we like i.e-- and so I am so RELIEVED it's Chicago. I have been here multiple times since its only a five hour drive, if he drives and six and a little more, if I drive from Bloomington and we have always had so much fun! There are relatively cheap things to do, an excellent China Town, Jazz places, cheap book stores, super libraries, a place where we can run, a thriving and fairly cheap farmer's market I have discovered with a little snooping and right in the area where we plan on living and the theater scene seems all right and more importantly, most importantly, there is the best Kerala food to be had and a Kerala grocery store! Wheee!! Not to mention Malayalam movies that arrive in a few months at the cinemas!
Really, what more could I want? Well, I suppose I need to make some friends! I am actually looking forward to this but I have no idea how to go about it! I really don't know anyone! Any suggestions are welcome, btw.
But for now, wheee!! Come visit me! :D

Read my links

Earlier I would send P all the interesting things on the interwebz or read something and "Like" it on Facebook and then we could discuss it sometime but now that she is super busy, I have no one to link with! So well, here are a bunch of interesting things.

Essays from Flavorwire. Flavorwire often has really good stuff up and I have bookmarked this for a slow read, there are seventeen links/ essays by women and I have read just one so far-the one by Adrienne Rich.

Happy Story
This has probably doing its rounds on the web but this is such a warm your heart to it's deepest cockles kind of story that you want to read it and feel good about the world.

A bit random and steering away from news, but look at the dog I want! : Puppy
And even when they grow up they still kind of look the same!

If you watch the show Girls, then you would understand this! : Girls
I am always in two minds about the show, but it is still worth a watch.

The following is one of the best articles I have read in a while about gender and sexual violence and it merits multiple close readings. This.  It made me think of things that we casually tell children. For e.g something on the lines of telling a boy child, " To not cry like a girl." or " Why do you take so long to dress, are you a girl?" or the very American, " Don't throw like a girl." or even the way people say," That is soo gay!"
This article tries to examine words and language and how important it is to understand the deeper implications of what we say. Here is a short sentence that quite sums it up: "The destruction of gender inequality must begin with the deconstruction of the language in which such inequality takes shape and keeps a hold on our lives."

My friend send me this song which is the cover of a famous Malayalam song and it is beautiful!
Check out their other stuff too!

A new book is out! I know the excerpts seem liked already mined territory but I do think this one is going to be really good. Check it out: Book.

This here is written by Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Dora: A Headcase, and this brings to focus a lot of uncomfortable truths but also asks much needed questions about how and why women view certain things as acceptable and continue to bear. Someone recently had on a status about Rihanna going back to her horrid boyfriend and how she is a 'stupid cunt'! It was appalling because sometimes  it will take someone multiple attempts to get out of a wrecking relationship and in a culture that is all too keen on judging your balls off, it probably will take more attempts.

I did not see the Oscar ceremony but I read about it and what the fuck! Look here! I will admit the article sometimes reads a bit too much into it or maybe not but isn't it amazing how okay it is to be this sexist in an event of such mass viewership.

I CANNOT STAND Anthony Bourdain and his terrible show. I find him so offensive and not in the least bit funny but somehow this episode in the Amazon and Belem wasn't so bad. Although he does refer to a man who climbs a coconut tree as, humping a tree. It is this very, you know,voyeuristic, let's look at how the "natives live" attitude that pisses me off. Asshole. Whose line was that btw? Joseph Conrad?
Anyway check this out. And also oh good lord, you should totally see his visit to Haiti and how his "white savior" bullshit role gets him in trouble. Ugh. I just- Anyway.


This is a superb essay on poetry and what it means for poetry to be accessible  I got Wasteland and Other Poems while in Istanbul and I will admit that a lot of the times the language, references elude me but at no point did I think that it was elitist but I would only assume that it is a failing of my own knowledge that is prohibiting me from completely getting down with it! Look at this,

" Yet, suddenly the poet them self is an elitist if the poem’s language resists immediate familiarity. Poesis means _to make_ not _to make familiar_. And this charge of elitism is possibly the saddest failure of imagination. […] In fact, this call for “accessibility” in poetry is a ruse itself to prevent us from encountering language that might alter us."

AND " Saying, “I don’t get it” or, worse, blaming it on the overly obscure poets writing to “show off” as Billy Collins claimed on “Talk of the Nation,” is just a way of rutting ourselves in the little trench we’ve dug to stay safe in the familiar, in the world we like to think we recognize and know. Poems destabilize that, seemingly effortlessly, so it’s no wonder poets […] appear blameworthy themselves."

Happiness shone like an oily T Zone

I don't know why but I woke up with this line. Terrible  no? I have been writing Annie and the unnamed narrator of my little story over and over in my head. I just feel so sorry for her and that is not really a good thing  Anyhow. So shall I tell you how paranoid I am? That sounds interesting right?
So! ;) There is quite a bit of prostitution going around. And it ısnt just my hotel but everywhere I suppose because as I was walking home I could see folks hanging around The expensive Crown Plaza, too! So when I was stepping in to my hotel there was a girl next to me; very tall and fair and my presuming assuming mınd said, Ukraınıan! Quite beautiful! She smiled sweetly when we stepped into the lift and I smiled too. Then this man with an apple in his hand stepped in and gave her the apple!! ;/ It was weird standing there watching the apple exchange! Then they got off on my floor and when I turned back, I saw that she was looking my way. Then I fell asleep. But around 12 ısh I get a call and I am a little disoriented and check my mobile to see if my parents had called, and not having got through called reception. I hear a woman's voice say, I want to call a country but first I hear, call from another country and I say, yeah connect me. And she says, no, no, I want to call another country, Libya  how to call?? And I am like what for a minute and then I say I don't know and hang up. For some reason my worst fears pop up. You know what my worst fear is  Getting chloroformed and beaten and raped. I don't know since a long time this has been my worst fear if alone. And although it is exaggerated and probably a little funny it is also what makes me go home at max 10 in the night and also place a chair against my door so that if someone tries opening my door at least I can hear first  It is not too much of an exaggeration though because as every day passes you can see that there is absolutely no accountability for women. Whatever happens, happens. I mean it is 20 fuckıng 13 and we are still saying, what was she wearing  why was she with a boy, what time did she get home?? So why should I not have my worst fear?

Anyway it strikes my poor tired brain that the lady calling me is an exaggerated ploy to make sure that is indeed my room and the man with the apple is going to come in and somehow I will end up in Bulgaria! So well I don't sleep for ages. She called again but I placed the receiver away. It is probably as simple, not probably, is as simple as wanting to call Libya but see where I went? Initially for this trip I was going to stay in a hostel dorm but then this fear just got stronger. Without even a door... I couldn't do it. I know lots of women do and return safe but so many also don't and just when I had gotten here, I was watching CNN Turk--İ need to watch something to sleep-- there was this story of a woman from Long Island who had gotten killed in Istanbul. Amma was up too and we just looked at each other. We could tell it was something sordid some kind of sex-love-thing gone wrong just by the music and pictures. Later I found the story online-- Saraı Sıerra-- and the news spoke of how she had stayed in a cheap place to save some cash and kept repeating as though that was what had gone wrong.
All right. I am sad now. 

I am a stranger in a strange land.

Courtesy: Carson McCullers.

I have done about like five different stupid things yesterday. But nothing with any real consequence, so that's a relief. Yesterday I went to Eyup, you had to take the ferry or a particular bus. But for the bus you have to get that bus card and unlike the tram where there are machines dispensing tokens at every station, the bus tickets are always hidden and tucked away. So yesterday I arrived at the bus stand not too unlike KSRTC stand and the bus was just leaving and I had my bag and vaddi and koda and I jumped in hoping to somehow negotiate it through! And the bus driver was forgiving and a man in the front seat let me use his card while and I gave him coins. I was so thankful, I kept giving him grateful looks! I have noticed that somehow people in buses and trains are more kind here? In trams people always stand up for older folks and women with children. In Boston, you could see people turn every other way just not to look at the hassled woman with her pram? Isnt that what its called? Yes. When Acha was here, he took the tram and it was his first time and when it lurched he almost fell and this young man stood up and boy, was I ever so thankful. I have stood up multiple times now because there is always someone in need of a seat.
So yes, the bus, and I was headed to the Pierre Loti cafe and what a climb it was. It was way uphill and the stone paved pathway was slippery from rain and on the sides was the beautiful cemetery and finally it was all worth it when you made it to the top from where you could see Istanbul spread out and it was all grey and overcast and gorgeous. Pierre Loti is rumored to have written in this little cafe. I found this place by searching the following in Google: Cafes to write in! :) I am not ashamed to admit how pretentious this sounds! Not that just by virtue of wanting to admit it, I am making it any less superficial. So by the time I left the Eyup Sultan Camii which had the most beautiful prayer room and I was right in time for the noon niskaram and I watched from a window and the service was so beautiful. The way the bodies where so synchronous and the Salah itself although I have heard it called as Baang  was loud up-close, it had a melody to it. This man kept watching me as though I would even take pictures of someone praying :/ I stood there till the end just to waste his time :/
While going down the hill after I wrote in the cafe, it was about five in the evening and since the cafe did not have any food I was starving. A couple who had asked me to take photos in the cafe were also going down and we were talking and suddenly I slipped and the woman grabbed me and then- she didn't let go! So we walked all the way holding hands and it was strange but not weird! I should have taken a photo! They would have come if I asked them to have lunch but I was so tired and I just wanted to read my book and eat something.
If you want to see a Mevlana performance while you are here, you want to go to Hodjapasha cultural center  The ones that the hotels show you or the cafes put on are most definitely tourist crap and kind of the on the lines of how white people are shown Kathakali in Kerala- a two and a half hour performance cut short to half an hour of indulgence. Why watch then?
There are two more museums  and one is a toy museum!! And a few other things to do but I am going to be sad when it is Sunday and time to leave. Although initially wary, I had such a good time! And I didn't mind being alone at all.