Date a girl who isn't afraid

**In case you don't know the format of "date a girl who...", Google it. It has some stellar (and corny) posts that went viral. I am writing this because I live in Delhi, India and am at a loss to articulate how I feel as a woman about safety.**

Date a girl who isn't afraid. Date a girl who isn't afraid of you, her parents, her entire extended family, teachers, the police, politicians, others' opinions and of embarrassing herself. She will probably be like a pot of boiling, molten substances. You might see her everywhere, all the time, more than any other girl you know. Her opinions maybe ridiculous and her bravado may seem foolish at times. Admit to yourself she is trouble.

Find a girl who doesn't seem to be afraid. Go closer and smile at her understandingly to tell her that you have a hint about how many people she makes unhappy as she steps out waving her bag and flailing her arms, walking with a careless hop in the most unsuspecting of places, at a time when no one seems to be around, doing nothing at all. Follow her as she loiters endlessly. If you are taller, match your steps silently and watch what a world takes away from her within an hour of joyful loitering.

Keep watching out for a girl who isn't afraid because there is a daily possibility that someone will want to squeeze her, pinch her and undress her in the middle of the crowded market. Step back as she continues to walk and ends up being slapped on the bottom. Her cheeks will turn a bright crimson and the molten substances may spill out from within. Look up at the sky of densely impossible clouds. You may see them form familiar faces who have no confidence in her ability to walk by herself and be left to her devices. That is when you should walk up to her.
Face the tearing girl who is on the verge of being afraid and don't offer her your critique of the society. Shake her hand and take a minute to admire her. Not her face, not her body, but the warm, stubborn extension of her wherever she walks. It's like her walk builds a little garden of not-so-afraid wherever she goes.

Propose to be around her, express your earnest desire to know her and in the same breath, admit your terror at the risks she chooses to take. In her enthusiasm, she might topple her bag full of books and biscuits and flowers and a knife, maybe. Avoid the urge to start sermonizing on self defense, Swiss knives and pepper sprays. Her mouth might be half open with no words coming out. You might get an inkling that she's been through this before. At least twenty times. If she hesitates, don't chase her until she relents.

It's painful to date a girl who isn't afraid. What can you offer? How much will she accept of your genuine, non-chauvinistic support? But, you should know it is an immense pang of relief for her when you say that rape isn't about the loss of dignity. She will be your statement to the world, your illustration of balanced feminisms and of honest changes by walking through the world day and night.

Plan long walks, to lanes, gardens, slums and the beach. Make sure you've seen them all with her in the morning, afternoon, evening and the winter night. Kiss her in public view, nibble at her ear to tell her you are equally unafraid of how you feel, where you are and what you do. Don't forget to sing. And whistle.

Find a girl who isn't afraid and soon enough you will know what scares her. Be with her and make sure, that a few years later you both know more girls who aren't afraid.

The end of the first job

So, I am moving on. Almost no one is unhappy that I quit, including me. For those who love me, there is absolute confidence that I will move on to do better things. I've often told myself how it is absolutely necessary to not get comfortable in a spot, city, job, relationship, program. Ironically, I've always said that after having arrived at a new place, job, program, relationship; asked myself, wondered what I will do after what I haven't even begun yet. This was me, at least a year ago. I would call myself the insider/outsider and I think others called me (to my face and otherwise) the forever-discontent-trouble-maker. As you can surmise, I am not a fan of systems, team meetings, group work, departments and such. In the past one year I've secretly admitted to so many occasional-delvers-into-my-life that I loathe asking for favors and meeting people to solve their problems. Similarly, I cannot suffer idiots, if I see a luddite I call her one, I've been lauded/hit with descriptives like clear and articulate. Have I changed in the past year? Obviously, yes.
I would do all this with no hesitation a year ago. To do a small detour/parentheses, not all of you will agree with what I have written of me so far. That is because, like most of you have realized, I span a vast, vast territory of people. That is the only strength that I can own up to any day. I am very awkward but I will always have something to talk to you about. I can be funny as some of you know. I used to feel pretty, I feel cleaner and not so arty anymore. I don't click pictures with my camera and I've cut my hair short. The point is, almost none of you see my expanse of relationships the way I do. That is where my skills work like magic in keeping clean cubicles of every person I've ever met, like a file with their stories in the strangest of their phases and moments. I might have pictures, incidents, secrets, lost interests, love stories - everything about them/you. But, today I wonder, what use is this little museum inside of me to the real world where I've been hustling for a year? Does all this matter?

The change in me has been about tempering myself. I've cried hoarse to many of you about the kind of people I have to work with (study with, volunteer with, intern with, live with, reach out to, travel with - the post is not *only* about you or you). It was a new phase and degree of hustling. I traveled a lot in this one year. I was forced to make new friends with some of you because I had to work with you. I did implementation in office. I did theory in class. I crashed in the room. I visited home after a whole year. For the first time ever, my parents experimented with the thrill of giving a surprise gift on my birthday. A lot of firsts, you can see.
Come to think of it, I've never really imagined a realistic and immediate profession. It's always been between finishing three thousand word papers in one night and being a professor, politician or world traveler (as soon as possible, like right now). So yeah, we fall from imaginary stars, we lose some love and we sit down close in the face of uncertainty. Wake up to a morning of non-work and reconcile with the idea of all that you have so far other-ed - non-work, aimless, lost, nothing-much, what next, don't know, yeah-me-I-don't-have-a-clue-either. It's not so bad outside my head. I can be employed in generic professions. I can teach, do journalism, write reports and such. But, those do nothing to convey the panoramic and conflicted perspective that I have acquired so far in my work, study and life. That is why I am not jumping to another job. Most things come to me by eliminating things I don't want to do. Maybe that explains a strong craving stench in me for some stability in personal life. I find the idea of freelance work dreadful.

Till I find a new peg, it is going to be all about addressing uncertainty. And, I know that needs some courage and some pro-active measures. Maybe not yet. I think I want to go home for now. Or be loved and pampered. Life gets better, right? 

Series: There's always two of us

Because we rarely see the ground we cover

My favorite poets so far

So, let me begin to tell you of my favorite poets so far. These are not all the poets I love but the relatively less popular ones whom you must read for pure delight and amusement. Most of the poets I mention here don't use heavy vocabulary and I feel their joy lies in that. Consider it as a post on my favorite quotes or poems, the kind that catch your eye and you want to quote them often. Also, I am not telling you why you should read them. I will only tell you how I found them.

Rilke, Lorca, Pessoa, Brautigan, Dunn

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
So, I was absolutely, hopelessly in love and wanted to write beautiful words to someone when I was in school. I used to be a big fan of Ruskin Bond and one of my favorite Bond poems is It isn't time that's passing by (Read it here: ruskin bond | Tumblr). I vaguely remembered the last few lines:  

"This was your song:
It isn’t time that’s passing by,
It is you and I."

I guess something that draws me into poems is the idea of a broken situation. I also believe that the best love stories usually have no ending and that once you get to know someone, you can never get to un-know them really. Similar with love, once in love you can change the manifestations of concern but the relationship never ends. That's Rilke for me.
Here are my favorite lines that I hope will initiate you into reading him:

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
Which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
 Because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible"

Rilke reads: Duino Elegies, Letters to a young poet


Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)
You find your poets in the most unlikely destinations, like recently I've been finding my music in television serial scores. Someone told me they learned Spanish only to read Lorca. Curiously, I looked him up and found the most beautiful Oxford Press book on Gigapedia with Lorca poems and parallel Spanish text (See here: Selected Poems: Federico García Lorca). Someone actually printed the book and gifted it to me. Someone else has my copy and Gigapedia is dead. Here is a mashup I wrote with a Lorca poem: Absent Soul|Yellow mouldy tattered paper. Also, you should know he loved the moon and lilies. The most dreadful Lorca metaphor:

"Death laid its eggs in the wound"

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)
This Portugese poet is a crazy find. Pessoa wrote his works under at least 81 different names. I heard someone talking about him at the dinner table and was so intrigued I had to look him up. If you are hopeless in a way that you have come a full circle and are jaded, Pesso will sing your song. That's what he did to me at least. At times when I am restless, I feel like him. Read:

"Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my  imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I  continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else,  that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with  another set. And the show I'm attending is myself."

There is this wonderful blog that has many of his poems. You might want to start here: Poems of Fernando Pessoa


Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)
I discovered Brautigan on my way to Haiku. He is a minimalist poet from America. I have multiple Brautigan favorites but here's something so darn cute.

Boo Forever: 
"Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you. "

If you liked this, read It's Raining in Love, I feel horrible, she doesn't and Love Poem

Stephen Dunn (1939)
To be honest, Stephen Dunn isn't my discovery. I read a few lines posted by a friend and was so moved that I knew I had to look him up. I found him very recently and kept forgetting his name until I wrote it down. Here are the first lines that drew me to him:

"Tell your lovers the world
robs us is so many ways
that a caress is your wayof taking something back"

I think what Dunn does most beautifully is chop them sentences really hard, just where they are meant to. It's like a crisp dish, just warm enough, living up to every dream you might have had of how it tastes.
If you want to read more, try If a Clown and Testimony

That's all from me. Happy poetry reading :-)

For those who don't "get" art

 Come Venice Biennale every year, across the world and more such, many popular fora get flooded with jokes on art and how many sensible, common people with little or no education in fine art (or aesthetics) don't get what's happening. It ends in whimpers from many within the art community and outside. I've been dealing with this question myself and in this post, I will address two issues, one of personal taste and the other, what you should look for in art.

Just a line before I start. You might be curious who I am, what my authority on the topic is and so on. I also find it useful to explain my vantage point because it will help you empathize and stay with my argument. I have received formal education in literature, psychology and media studies and my first encounter with (fine) art theory was in my graduate programme. From then on, I studied visual art, theater and performance and cinema. As you can see, most of these disciplines that I've had the chance to dip my fingers in, have been accused of bull shitting. In other words, it is a common claim that many people do not understand what literature, poetry, psychology, media theory, cinema and visual art produce. So, basically this question haunts me every single day while I try to produce research on these subjects and make truth value claims. I am/was as skeptical as you might be at some point.

Setting the ground:

Have a look at this: I'm Sick Of Pretending: I Don't "Get" Art | VICE United Kingdom
Is this how you feel? Does this post echo your sentiments and also reflect the rubbish you encounter at art galleries, fairs and museums? Good, then we are on the same page. The student here claims to be an art student and has done all kinds of things to participate in the contemporary art culture but simply fails to "get it"! This tells us that she, just like you and I, has a personal taste. She has an opinion on what is pretty and what is ugly or what moves her heart and what doesn't. This is true for all of us. Most of the times when someone calls you Philistine (a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts) you quickly bounce back and say, "I know what's pretty and what's not." The question to be asked is, is all art pretty? Not necessarily. Does art have a function? Of course it does. Art can heal, it can inspire social change, it can educate people (the language of the image precedes the written word in fact), art can earn money in modern societies (so it can feed people too) and art can be as dangerous as 'the bomb'.

If you are wondering why I am talking of personal taste and the function of art, most of us go to look at art and ask these questions. We ask why red and blue, why metal and glass, what is this object trying to "do" and what is its meaning (in the functional sense; like bridges are meant to connect, food is meant to feed and art?). Of course, these questions come after your first impression (where personal taste comes in). What I am asking of you is to ask a more abstract question of art. And, this is my strategy to know "good"/inspiring art from bad/pretentious/uninspiring art.
Disclaimer: Just like you may not appreciate beer, different cuisines, the complexity of a new sport, dance or find a cultural ritual absolutely absurd, anything without a historical context can seem bizarre. So, before you write it off, read up a little around it. For example, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain or Rauschenberg's Black Painting may seem unworthy of being masterpieces to you. However, if you knew that Duchamp deliberately used a urinal to make fun of high art monopoly and Rauschenberg wanted to explore nature's essence by simply painting a canvas black you might warm up to them, no? I could go on about what makes us like popular art (different for everyone) but will save that for later. 

So, to give you my final strategy to engage with art works or performances, talk to the art. Ask the art object if it represents or acts. Simply put, in my opinion, a photograph of a woman rubbing money on her vagina is of less artistic value or maybe none as compared to video of women in burqa and hot pants in France walking on the street to oppose the Hijab ban.[5] If you see, while both instances seem like "shocking" acts by women, the first may not be disrupting, talking back or breaking stereotypes and its shock value merely relies on the nudity element or the obvious statement it makes. The second instance becomes interesting for me, not because of what it has inherently but for what it does to the society around. That is, to me, the crucial line between inspiring and 'dead' art. Of course, people make pretty, shocking, new things that may not be performing this disruptive function. And, you can like that too.

If you liked my argument but wish I could substantiate it with more examples, let me tell you about John Cage and his piece 4'33''. John Cage, a famous music composer produced a 4 minute piece which was completely silent. Yes, you would ask - where is the music? Use my strategy, ask what the piece/artist is trying to do, not what it seems like (not music or noise or silence). What Cage claimed his piece was trying to do is to assert that any sound is music, including the sound of silence.

Apologies for the longish post, but I hope this gives you more confidence to walk into a gallery and ask again - is this art?