testing pics-- meeeeeeeeeeeep! it works! Holy lord!!! so excited...


Anyway, this is me with Rama and Bucha, two of my favorite girls in Ludiya.

about change

“Every one of us wants to make a difference,” he says, “but the whole world conspires to tell you that you can’t — the prevailing messages are all about inaction and cynicism. I learned early in my life that not only can you make a difference, you don’t have a choice. You might think that as long as you’re not choosing to do bad, you’re not making things worse. But that’s not true. You’re always making a difference, one way or another, whether you acknowledge it or not.”
-->Andy Lipkis

Healing

My grandfather has forever been one of the most self-sufficient, energetic individuals. My brother and I would have to run to keep up with him when we lived at his house in India; common knowledge for anyone that's ever met him.

Recently, he fell ill and needed an operation, yet a simultaneous heart attack/
stroke/ dangerously low blood sugar postponed it. My Dada being sick, or weak, is like the universe being flipped on its head, like rain falling up or fire being cold. Completely inconcievable.

Well, his health finally stabilized enough for him to be able to get his operation a day ago. I talked to him when he got home. He sounded like a rockstar... Happy and energetic and ready to take on the world. As always. The 80 year old I will be one day.

And, as though his recovery wasn't enough, when I asked him what he wanted for his upcoming 80th bday, he says,

Just come home soon. You comprise everything that makes me happy into one package.

The world's got nothing on me today.

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

-Buddha

Plugging back in

Ok. I apologize. The cell phone fell out of my pocket while riding a cab. Apparently, caught my friends' cell phone curse (who've dropped their phone in the toilet, the bathtub, walked into the ocean with it in their pocket, down flights of stairs....) :) No names will be mentioned to protect their honor, and chances at an eventual presidential campaign.

In any case, my phone is back in action. Same #. 9825503561.

Navrathri starts today: 9 nights of dancing... and, consequently, no sleep for a while. Ramadan starts tomorrow as well. Too excited.

I'm out.

tangent thoughts

In recently talking to one of my favorite creative geniuses, it came up that he reads this site periodically, and that 'it sounds like i've been on adventure after adventure.'

I got to thinking if that is how this webjournal comes off.

I talk about the tangible things I do b/c it's easier to have people understand the experience of being here (easier than trying to document my crazy mental paradigm shifts). And I've done some amazing things... broken out of my comfort zones so many times that the boundaries of 'comfort' have been redrawn, redefined...

I carried hundoes of water on my head. I cooked on an open fire, the flour I got milled in the next village over and the vegatables I had to walk 2 km to get. I washed my clothes by hand and lived on less money than many of the villagers themselves did. I slept under stars for most of the year; I also spent a night or two in the same room as an entire family and their cows, goats and rooster. But these are my adventures only because it is me doing it, and because it's different from what my everyday life looked like. This is not exotic for the people in my community. This is their life.

I imagine it would be like one of my Kutchi women coming to stay with me for a several months. She'd live with me, trying to fully immerse herself in my lifestyle. Then she would write to her people back home... something along the lines of "it is so exotic here. I rode in her blue honda accord to an actual gas station.... like the kind you see in those American movies. So crazy! Then I learned to fill the gas into the tank by myself! I slept with her traditional american music CD lulling us to sleep, with the calming hums of a fan on the ceiling and a pump that pushes air bubbles under water so fish can live in a small glass room. Then, we drove for twenty minutes to a store where they have *different flavors* of milk.... that is sold in *gallons!* Her family all lived in different rooms, some on different floors! They keep no animals and all of their food comes in boxes!" Our everydays are adventures to anyone who lives a different lifestyle.

When I get back home, I'm going to see if I can live my normal everydays like adventures.

I'm such a cheeseball. But we already established this long ago.


In other news:

1. I am coming home. Eventually. But I could definitely live here. There's an unparalleled beauty to this country. I think it might be something in the water. No worries tho. My ticket is confirmed. meeeeeeeeeeeeep.

my first phone in over a year. Holy jeebus.

new cell 98255 03561. Gujarat mobile number.

Going to Karnataka (near Bangalore) to drop off two new fellows (30 plus train hours with 2 artist/activists from circa Harlem. Fiesty as hell, super passionate. Should be great.) Will be back in action (i.e. my phone is back on) on on the morning of the 19th.

peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeace.

hey, btw, jen/tea/eeeeeeee, how was vegas?!?!? sometimes, i miss you guys so much that i can't see straight.... and then I remember jennaiya telling me to open my eyes ... and it's all ok. much love.

meeeeeep!

...

sometimes, it's hard to realize how much I have yet to learn.

the artist formerly known as Rups McSad

so, i'm officially Indicorps staff. Doing a whole bunch of really cool media stuff... but right now, just being there for the new fellows to adjust and prepare for their year.

In any case, the past few weeks have been insane. the last days of my project overlapped with my family coming in... had an amazing time.... then- editing the book w/ rish before he left... then to orientation.... as staff.

Everything just blurred into the next... which has been beautiful... but highly overwhelming. I need a walden pond.

ah well.

in any case, the overwhelmedness,
in addition to most of my fellows leaving ( besides Shiv, my new roommate, and Anup, an artist/architect in training who I'm doing sketches of India w/ every Sunday) ...
in addition to my family leaving...
had made me feel really sad and lonely recently... even though I'm surrounded by super inspiring and talented people.
Extremely sad.
Extremely lonely.

and then, my brother, who I thought absolutely *hated* coming to visit me here... puts this up on his webjournal:

"Well let's recap the summer. spent the first couple of months hanging out with Dan, Jim, Koz and my brother just watching movies and tearing up the town. Normally I would be playing baseball and hanging out with Suds, Kandarp, and Vish as we do every summer, but we sort of split up this time. Beginning of the summer I took this music class with my brother taught by two musicians from India. The premise of the class was to teach me to play my guitar (Western instrument) with my brothers Tablas (Eastern instrument). The class went well. They taught us a couple of songs that we could play together: Ragas, bhajans, shiznack like that. Don't worry non-Indian people you don't know what these things are, try typing it into GOOGLE. Other than these classes and driving my brother the first half of my summer was pretty routine. Family Picnic, birthday parties, summer barbecues, fireworks, all around good times.

From July 21st to August 17th I was in India to spend time with my beautiful and multitalented sister Rup.

Trip: We left on Thursday night, arrived in Switzerland 9 hours later, then another 5.5 hours we were in Kuwait, where our flight was delayed 12 hours- stayed in a sweet hotel in Kuwait and left for Mumbai in the morning, arrived that morning and left for Ahmdebad an hour or so later and Ahmdebad and drove 1.5 hours to Himetnager, where my grandfather owns a gorgeous 3 story home.
Stayed there the night and left for Ludiya (the village where my sister lived) in the morning. Rather than boring you with the whole breakdown i'll just sum up quickly. Let me preface this by saying I was sick before I left and this hectic travel schedule did not aid matters very much. For the first two weeks of the 3.5 weeks i was there i didn't feel completely normal.

Anyways, Ludiya was a very quiet and self-sustaining place. They lived off what they made and were extremely nice people. My sister's project was to empower the women in this community and enhance their sense of creativity by making them more aware of the sewing crafts they would make. I know I didn't describe that very well, but I'm not good with descriptions. Let me just say this- everyone I met there had the best things to say about Rup. She fit into this community completely. They all were drawn to her warmness and her personality, it was truly amazing to see. The love they had for her was very pure. At least from my point of view. After we left Kutch we split up for a while and went back to my dada's house. Where we watched some quality Scooby Doo cartoons dubbed into Hindi, which funny enough there are no hindi translations for "zoinks"

anyways after a couple of days we set off for the state of rajastan and travelete to three cities seeing the forts, palaces, and temples, and native people in these cities. Fun times, after that we just chilled around and did some shopping.

All in all the trip was very hectic and tiring but if I had to do it all over again I would do it. Being sick and all that shit was worth it to see the work Rup was doing and just spending time with her. It was wierd the first day the whole family was back together it was like we hadn't been apart for a second. There was no awkward silence or small talk, it was immediately back to those jokes, those laughs, those memories, that sense of family.


Well to recap India: if I actually told you how many miles we travelled during the entire trip your head would explode so I'll spare, let's just say it's a lot.
Rup and her work are both amazing, there aren't a lot of people who are brave enough to leave everything they know behind to help others. Could YOU? NO! you can't! maybe you can I don't know I'm just messing with you.
Illness: I'm fine now, I lost about 12 pounds on this trip, and I think I have cholera, but maybe I should stop diagnosing myself.
What I learned: That the People of India are very warm and inviting and extremely nice. Every person we would come across would want us to come over for food, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Everyone looked out for us while we were over there and they were all very generous. Even those who did not have that much were willing to invite us into their homes and treat us like family. It is something you just don't see here that often.

Also, being in India simplifies your life a little bit. You can't really take for granted all the little things like you can here to those little things become your primary worries. Things such as clean water, electricity, extreme heat, etc. Here these things are a given so we can overlook them and worry about other things. Over there they are not a given so they become the primary problems. So while I was there I noticed that I would enjoy simpler things like a cool breeze, or a star filled sky, or the company of loved ones... it was a very cool thing to experience. I know this probably does not make sense but it does to me so back off! all in all the trip was very educational, fun, and tiring and the same time, but mostly i had a good time... now it's time to go back to school and enjoy my final year at the University of Illinois. Time to go out with a bang.

To all my friends and family, especially those who are starting college or any other type of challenge in their life, I wish you the best of luck, and if visiting India has taught me anything it is that we are very blessed to have the opportunities we have and to not make the most of them would be an insult to those who do not have these opportunities. So take a step back sometime and think about how much you have and how blessed you are and try to truly enjoy life to the fullest and don't worry about the small things.

All the Best and Good Luck, MUCH LOVE -vimal-"

Suddenly, .... well, perhaps I'm not as unloved and alone as I thought. :)

meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

story of my life. :)

and... the story of the day:

My family left. My fellows left. Super depressed. And on top of it all.. the cabs in town all went on strike yesterday... and so I explore the bus system. And get pickpocketed.
ugh.
frustrating b/c I *remember* thinking 'the zipper on my purse is broken, it'd be pretty easy for someone to swipe my wallet.' what do I do? put it in my purse anyway.
ugh, squared.

At this point, I am depressed AND have lost all faith in humanity.

Then,

I get a call from some guy telling me he found my wallet (i *know* I did not lose it) and wants to return it to me. I tell him to meet me where I am working... and my spirits begin to lift..

until rishi plants seeds of doubt into my head:

"rup, what if this guy was the one who *stole* your wallet, saw that you had no money (b/c I am flat broke), saw that you are foreign, and is now claiming to have found it so that he would have an excuse to talk to you... he'd be the good guy..."

Long story short, that was yesterday. I meet this guy at an intersection next to where I am working, who asks me all these questions about myself, and doesn't give me my wallet (he 'forgot' it at his house).

Screw the wallet. This story is over. I hate everything.

passion...

This is an email that I got from my girl leslieann a while back.. some wisdom from bino. He's talking about poetry.. but, from what I have learned this year, the institutionalization of expression and standardization of creativity applies to many of the arts. But really, the passion to get the truth/inspiration/beauty you see out into the world, to the people that are waiting for it, applies to any work, from music to physics, that you do. -rups

"why is fiction more appealing to the general public? why does poetry bring this image of a private club? what are poets thinking when they write? are they thinking someone will read their books and understand their work? or are they thinking, it doesnt matter, i write for myself?

the private club. more and more poetry are coming out of institutions, and more poets work in institutions as well. a poetry industrial complex. walls of higher learning. while learning should be encouraged, walls should not be built around it. i am not a big fan of this phenomenon, because i have always been afraid that institutional loyalty of poets may potentially veil the telling of the truth. the truth, the foundation of poetry. i also fear that poetry, being so academicized, stays inside the gates of institutions and not in the hands of the general reading public. poets read poets, and oftentimes these poets belong to the same academic circles. is there poetry for the people, poetry people can read and understand without feeling alienated by the text?

such a different life, being a fictionist and being a poet. i still cant, after all these years, profess that i am a poet without feeling self-righteous. i prefer to say, i also write poetry, after saying, im a writer, or a novelist. say, im a poet, and thats the end of conversation. poets seem to sit up on a pedestal somewhere, among the PhDs that no one could ever converse with. do poets dream of immortality such that they dont feel the urgency that their work must be shared and understood now? are they rembrandts who will not be understood in their lifetime but rediscovered as posthumous classics? do poets at all find the need to touch?

what is the truth?

fictionists and the reading public are two things that seem to be inseparable in publishing. poetry and the reading public are two things that dont belong in the same sentence. does poetry being of a gift economy mean that there is no need to find an audience? or is the joke-myth of 1000 poets reading each other true?

i think of the times of sappho of the island of lesbos, a woman poet in a ring of male dominated world. when poetry was a song. a song recited, a story told. that people gathered in their backyard and recited each other poems, young and old alike. nowadays, the poet stands at a podium and recites from up there, far from his audience. he is first introduced, with a bio as long as a poem itself. it is a bio that nobody really listens to, full of publications in journals nobody in the audience (but the fellow poets) know of. it is a list of accomplishments. because without such list, the poet is naked.

it brings me images of freires teacher-god. the poet-god. the one nobody understands. the dictator-poet, whose only connection is to himself. but perhaps the poet doesnt care so much about whether he is understood, because in fact, there is no need to be understood? it is poetry. and poetry does that to people.

in the classroom, the teacher is in the position of power. the power to change. to be understood. if the teacher doesnt want to be understood and continue in his act of dictation, students are disempowered. for this reason, i believe that the poet also possesses this power. i cant leave the responsibility to the people to reach out to poetry. it should be the poet reaching out.

which brings me to fiction. bad fiction is work that nobody understands. if a story cannot communicate on the gut-level, it is bad work, very simple. fiction is someone sitting next to you on a long subway ride trying to tell you a story that hopefully you will grasp without feeling the need to get off at the next stop. if a work of fiction cannot do the fundamentals of storytelling, it is bad work.

is there bad poetry these days?

i want to sit in a circle, with a poet among us, a poet who will read us a few of his poems, a poet who will try very hard to make sure we are with him through the process of sharing, a poet who is sitting on the ground with us. i want this circle to be many circles in the world. i want to see poetry shared this way. i want it given out, in pieces of paper, pasted on walls. i want it on the subway so the morning workers can be inspired by a few beautiful lyrical lines. i want it outside the academia so that it wont collect webs in their libraries. i want it to be free, and distributed. i want it on coffee cups. i want it on tshirts. i want poetry to be turned into music so people can sing, sing, sing poems.

i want publishing poetry not to be a competition among poets. i want it out of the contest venue. i want poetry to be written because it has to be written, not because a book needs to be finished. i want it to be written because it has to be written not because a promotion is needed.

i want it to be written because people are waiting and patiently waiting to read them. i want poetry to be all about the truth, and nothing, oh nothing but the truth.

-----

Oh, and I have decided to stay back in India for a few more months....

"man, macguyver could fix all of India's geo-political problems with a toothpick."

- my brother, vimz.

yep, still here. family's in town... crazy running around. will update soon. ...

real quick tho- Anand shah and Vikas both just got engaged!!! WTF?!?!?!? Congrats!!
AND nathaniel is in INDIA. YAY!!!

BUT- I don't currently have a ph # to be reached at... but soon... maybe.... meeeeep.

:) PEEEEEEEEEEEACE