YOUR WAYS AND WORDS

(for Li'l A)

The way
your eyebrows
turn significant and underline
all your juicy information

The way
your giggles stretch
An extra syllable ‘cos you’re
Too happy to stop laughing

The way
you wiggle into clothes
Like a mop-haired, lovable whale
With (I counted it) four love handles

The way
you look at us in the mirror dancing
As if remembering it
for when you’re older or sadder

The way
you say I love you
(and not just I love you too)
More than any other child does

The way
You love to be cuddle-ey
And for inventing the back-hug,
the quick cuddle, and the come-back cuddle

TWO SISTERS "A" AND "M"

(The Henna Painting Problem)

A has more friends in this one city in Texas
than M has all around the world.
M has definitely had more lovers
than A--who’s never had any.

By the time M returns from the bathroom
scrubbed clean of perfume and hand cream
A has set the mood, playing henna songs--
marriage songs from Bollywood movies--
and the makeshift implements are laid
surgically precise across the dining table
M is amused and touched
(extremely touched, but more amused)
she teases, A feints, fakes offense, parries
the old cantankerous plays of their childhood.


So A and M set to work with the henna
Dusty green, fragrant with eucalyptus;
tangy with gathered body salt
But it’s nostalgia that paints their tone
moments of melancholy for distant bits of the family
with peculiar crises and erratic disenchantments
and wistfulness for communal village celebrations
Their own marriages were way too cosmopolitan
(but then again they’ve seen way too many movies).


All the while, the music trips blithely about
euphoric families, faithful husbands
Jingles about henna running earnest as blood.
Perhaps it really is someone’s true reality
but it sounds naive somehow
and they catch sight of their cynicism
Amidst it all--lying there somewhere secretly
like the single silver hair in A’s shiny fastness


They snort
at their woeful attempts at art
they should be talking about their lives
but this task grabs all their attention
and besides they already know everything
have trodden the constant paths of conversation
can predict their terrain of talk better than Mapquest
know how to track back when they inevitably get lost


Two sisters A and M:
Worried for the sheets,
A removes her henna before she goes to bed
and sleeps fitfully, thoughts tossing her around;
M keeps the henna on and sleeps soundly, arms
stretched out as if in supplication.
Nevertheless, in the morning
A’s henna is still darker than M’s.


They’re not even sure if they heard it from an old female relative
of theirs or an old female relative of someone in the movies
--that the darker the henna dyes your hand, the deeper the love
of your husband. Or lover.


It doesn’t mean anything,
it’s just about body heat,
says A,
M pulls a face
but is secretly glad
as though the henna were
a magic telegram spelling out
her recently estranged brother-in-law’s intent.


A will drive to the airport;
M’s plane is this morning.

I'VE ALWAYS DISTRUSTED TUESDAYS

Tonight arrives with empty promises

and remains empty

until

loneliness fills it up

so that inspite of waking

many times

it is not yet morning

and there is no sleep

in my eyes

only tears

and dreams so close

you are caught in my lashes

Ayaan Hirsi Ali takes Rushdie's advice (a year later)

First off, you do remember Ayaan Hirsi Ali, right? She's the erstwhile Dutch MP who wrote the anti-Islamic film Submission. The director of the film, Theo Van Gogh, was publicly killed by Mohammed Bouyeri who may have been connected with the Egyptian extremist group Takfir wal-Hijra in 2004 and since then the beautiful and outspoken Hirsi Ali has been living under a virtual fatwa. In an article in Der Spiegel last year, she mentions her interface with the living specialist on Fatwa survival:

SPIEGEL: Did you think about asking for advice from Salman Rushdie, against whom the Iranian mullahs issued a fatwa years ago?

Hirsi Ali: Before all this happened, I wasn't in contact with Salman. I met him for the first time at a PEN Club dinner in April of this year. He encouraged me, implored me, to remain strong. He explained to me how one can continue living in spite of a fatwa, and he gave me some tips.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Hirsi Ali: Moving to the United States, for example.
----------------------------------------------------------

The big news is that Hirsi Ali is set to work at The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, which is notoriously conservative and where she will no doubt be pressured to tell exactly the kinds of anti-Islamic horror stories the Bush administration wants to hear. What continues to inspire is her transparent good faith and her history of resourceful anti-authoritarianism. Remembering Rushdie's tenure as chairperson of PEN never hurts either :).

On Desi Women and their rumored "sexual capital"

Sheltered by my residency within academia all my adult life, I’ve encountered little to no racism—the couple of times I have recognized racism* it has been from, (a) waiter at a take away—FWIW—he belonged to a minority ethnic group too (b) awful strange encounter on a bus in England—where this bloke accused me of being “a typical Indian girl” like he was outing a Nazi--FWIW--he was super disgruntled before he even started talking me up.

Still and all, this article from the Indian Telegraph, which generalizes that Indian women command extensive “sexual capital” in playing the dating game in the US sounds way off. I’m pretty sure that for every Desi woman who meets a fun, sane, articulate non Desi man there’s another Desi woman encountering the angry, ignorant, incoherent type who’ll try to trash her in the Craigslist Rants and Raves section. The Telegraph article is somewhat disjointed and more than a little confused, not knowing whether to indulge in self-congratulation about Desi women being desirable or tout this as a news-worthy development of the American-born second-generation’s cultural rite de passage.

Anyway, it makes me want to remind myself right now that

(a) much as the cultural fundamentalists would like to coast over the facts, Indian women have, depending on proximity, bedded the Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Persians, Africans, British, Portugese, Dutch, French, Jews, plus plenty of other ethnicities over the centuries. So if bunches of them live in the US and are going out with Americans this is hardly remarkable.

(b) In a cosmopolitan world, the politics of race and/or ethnicity don’t figure much in choosing your friends-dates-mates-activity partners. Growing up in South India, my world was defined by class (and sometimes caste) but it was rarely dominated by race issues or dependent on unofficial race markers such as color or inherited wealth. The black-as-coal and rich-as-Kubera folks back in Chennai don’t know what a great cultural lesson they gave me.**

Footnotes:

* Sure, there have been many comments of the how-well-you-speak-English variety and much fussing over my mother’s beautiful sarees—but I’d slot those as compliment/lack of awareness or compliment/marginal fetishization. Full disclosure: I go ape over my mom’s sarees too :) . And before I forget—airport security has never disregarded my ethnic background; so if you’re flying with me, expect delays…

**Much as Hindu mythology gave me a great foundation in disability studies—I mean, if someone can have three legs and eight teeth and be in charge of the wealth of the gods (see Kubera link above, lazybones), someone with--say, one leg and a full set of teeth--surely must be off to a great start as a human?

Immigration Redux

After i wrote about M.I.A.’s visa problems (see below), this cropped up—

Not to get all Essie Mae about it, but i just remembered that back in the day when i had visa delays, Senator Strom Thurmond petitioned the INS on my behalf (thanks to my super cool grad. student advisor). Damn, but i miss the South Carolina dogwoods right about now…

ON THE THIRD DAY OF RAIN

Rain outside
Falling as deliberately
As if notes
struck by a jazz pianist

Slightly travel-ruffled
But charmingly
Molten and shiny
But icy

Like words when
they fall all sullen
To the depths
of an argument