Rediscovery

The last 2 years have been strange. After years (decades!) of losing total touch, old school friends have been returning to my life in ones and twos. First there were a few drops, then a trickle and now that we're all on Facebook, there's a veritable deluge!

I'm glad. I like the women we've become, each one of us. As Indrani put it, "I like where I'm at right now." Anjali, Promita, Indrani, Nila, Anuradha, Minakshi, Gargi, Sucharita, Sunrita, Mousumi, Sayantani: meeting you all after all these years, I like where you're at and I'm happy we met again at a time when we're all comfortable with who we are and what we're becoming.

Sumedha, Sunita, Shyamashree, you who've grown with me over the years, we're ageing well, aren't we?
Rama, Smita, Sumita, Roma, Seema, Rupa...and all those I'm in touch with virtually but am yet to meet in real time: I'm really looking forward to getting to actually knowing you all once again.
I think we'll make better friends this time around.

Cheers to a formiddable group of women!

SPIRIT-MUSIC

It has been heard from time immemorial in every culture, every nation, every corner of the world.

Call it what you will—
Om.
The music of the spheres.
The harmony of the universes.
The rhythms that make the stars burn and the planets turn.
The tunes that make nature dance.
The primal vibrations that guide the indomitable life-force in the flowing of rivers, in the salmon swimming against the currents; in the great migrations of the wildebeest in the Serengeti.

To be born. To mate. To create life. To transcend the living.

The music connects all life, communicates effortlessly with all life, is comprehensible to all life. It links mind to mind, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul.

Its notes contain us, envelop us, enable us to enter the divine within us.

TEACHERS AAJ-KAL: ARJAN'S VERSION

OK, Vipul, taking a page from your blog, here!

While I was writing my post, my son who just turned 16 was writing his own version, just for fun. Now that the contest is over, I present his thoughts on the subject.

I must emphatically add that this is pure, unadulterated Arjan Banerjee--not a word has been changed; not a punctuation mark has been altered; not a thought has been injected or edited.

I am immensely proud of what Arjan has produced. The maturity of thought he's exhibited is way beyond his age!

Forgive me if I sound repetitive, but just let us wonder….in how many ways do we take our teachers for granted???

Before we delve any further in this topic, we should ask ourselves…what makes a teacher?? What miraculous component of characteristic alchemically transforms a normal human being into a teacher? And I would like to note, here, that I am talking about true teachers, teachers who really care; whose primal desire is their students’ success. These teachers take their students’ failures as their own; and when their students do well, they revel in their success. These teachers, I think, are composed of a blend of great knowledge in one or more fields, wondrous compassion and natural talent and love of teaching. These teachers are very rare and it is them that I will be referring to when I say ‘teacher.’

In all cultures around the world, a teacher holds a place of great respect and importance in a person’s life. In English, ‘teacher’ is listed as synonymous with ‘mentor’ and ‘guide.’ In Indian culture, a ‘teacher’ is (or at any rate was) a ‘guru,’ possibly the most important figure in a person’s life. A teacher is a person who can show one the way to, not only get by, but do well in this tough world. A teacher imparted to his or her students the knowledge that he or she has painstakingly and assiduously gained, through great trial and sacrifice, for little or nothing in return.

Down the ages, the role of a teacher and indeed what a teacher is has definitely undergone a complete metamorphosis. In the ancient days, in India, teachers were exclusively highly educated Brahmins who were well versed in practically all subjects. They taught their pupils the scriptures and martial strategy, yoga and archery, hymns and swordsmanship… they were indeed all rounded teachers, fervently revered almost as deities. The role of the teacher in a person’s life was possibly of greater significance than anybody else. He was indeed a mentor and guide.

In today’s world, true teachers are nigh impossible to find but when found, there can be nobody who can shape and mould a person into an infinitely better human being. In the world as it is now, we are in desperate need of true teachers who will have not only academically but also morally superior students. The lucky people who are taught by these teachers will also have a higher regard for nature and exist at a higher state of awareness about nature’s present plight.
In the future, true teachers shall become even more necessary than they are now. If we continue as we are, the world will certainly be in dire straits… threatened both by the threat to nature and by humankind’s foolish animosity towards one another, at all levels of society:- individual, inter-family, between social strata, state wise, nation wise, between different religious factions, and finally maybe even on an international level. We need true teachers to spread the message of peace, harmony, coexistence, toleration and mutual understanding. It is only true teachers who can actually teach us to think in perspective, to think beyond ourselves, to put ourselves in others’ shoes. Teachers teach us that unity is far stronger a structure than those that are divided; to have unity in diversity.

To return, finally, to the question I put forward in the first line of this essay: - in how many ways do we take our teachers for granted??? In my opinion is that the best example to show this is the fact that we have a teachers’ day in the first place. We take teachers for granted to such an extent that we have to remind ourselves, annually, not to???? The idea itself is ridiculous.

Frankly, I think that the concept of teachers’ day is an insult to the hard work that teachers put in day in, day out.

Thank you for reading this.

Teachers: Aaj Kal

This post has been published by me on the occasion of the Teachers' Day as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 2; the second edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Kal, aaj or kal, I take great pride in my “noble” profession as an educationist.
“Noble?” you ask.

Well, there’s noble and there’s noble.

You can be noble because of excellence of quality or character or mind
And you can be noble by rank.

Noble can mean dignified, elevated, eminent, exalted, generous, illustrious, superior, worthy and excellent.

Noble can also mean aristocratic, high-born, grand, lofty, stately, lordly, masterly..

I can think of several professions that fit the bill of noble on either one parameter or the other.

But kal, aaj or kal, mine is a profession that is all of the above: dignified, worthy, excellent and also grand and stately!

Kal, aaj or kal: Yes, by god, we teachers are noble!

We even have a day in the calendar set aside to celebrate our profession and designated as Teacher’s Day just in case you missed how important we are.
So if you can’t see that halo around my head, at least you’ll see a crown.

When we were in school, there was this song we sang on Teacher’s Day: She’s got the whole world in her hands. And it’s true, isn’t it?

The French have a saying: “cherchez la femme.” I’m going to modify that to “cherchez la teacher.” Examine your selves, your characters, your likes and dislikes, your fears and ambitions, your confidence and insecurities…I promise that if you look closely, behind every one of your perceptions, every one of your ambitions, every success or failure, like or dislike you have, you’ll probably see a teacher’s hand.

I can speak for myself. If I still get nightmares about giant geometry instruments, I know who’s responsible.

If I’m still obsessed with tiny and regular hem-stitches, I know who’s responsible.

If my students have to draw neat margins on both sides of their exam papers, I know who’s responsible.

If I have an aversion to missed apostrophes, I know who’s responsible.

If I can stand up and speak confidently in front of a 1000 people, I know who’s responsible.

If I have grown into a competent, well-rounded human being, I know who’s responsible.

Kal, aaj or kal, can you imagine the power we exert? It’s not an accident that we’re called “masters” and “mistresses.”

We have so much control over so many lives that it’s scary—we have a captive audience every day of our lives. When we speak, you have to listen. We wield the sword of success and failure over your heads. We can reward and punish and banish at whim.

And have you ever tried to tell a child that the way their teacher pronounces a word is wrong? Have you ever tried to get a child to do a sum differently from how their teacher has taught it?

And kal, aaj or kal, if you considered for a minute the kind of work we do for the meager pay we get, you wouldn’t doubt it for a moment!

We teachers are noble!

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton are Vipul, Rajalakshmi, Dhiman, Ranee[1], [2], [3] , Avada, Indian Pundit, Sojo, Aneet, Pramathesh, Aativas, Sid, Pra, Ajinkya, Lakshmi, Govind, Shilpa, Bharathi, Shankar, Mytuppence, Azad, Pawan, Pankaja, Saimanohar, Guria, Shruti, Vishnu,Nasrajan and Richa. Click on their respective names to read their posts on Teachers : Aaj Kal. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

On Independence and Other Things

Biji, my grandmother, like a lot of our grandparents, was a very political being.

Growing up in those heady days when young people agitated not for their own small freedoms, but for the big “Independence” for their country, Biji joined Bapu in satyagraha and non-cooperation, took her 4 year old son to shoo Simon away and cried bitterly as two pieces of her heart were ripped away from her by the Partition. She wore nothing but white khadi since the age of 22 and talked about the country’s leaders as if she knew them all intimately. Some, she did.

My dad was not yet 10 when Nehru delivered his midnight speech that held the nation spellbound. By the time my grandmother was 42, I had been born and when she was my age she already had 5 grandchildren.

Politics was daily breakfast fare in our household and the state of the country was of direct and immediate concern to Biji, who subscribed to 13 newspapers and magazines in 4 languages and devoured them all.

The flag, the anthem, Vande Mataram held more emotional value for her than the symbols of her religion. Each and every little landmark date on the way to 1947 was celebrated or mourned with religious fervour other families associate with id or diwali.

Between her generation and mine, there was still the direct touch of a body full of first-hand memories of life in an India not yet free. I saw it in her soft, white “dhoti”, I heard it in her night-time stories, I felt it in her hot, naked feet that walked the roads without slippers and were soaked in a tub of cold water upon her return.

Biji died of nothing, suddenly, at the ripe old age of 57 leaving behind her a full family of 2 sons, 2 daughters in law, 8 grandchildren and countless unknown faces she had benefitted in various ways that we only came to know after her death. I was then 15.

My reactions to Republic Day, Independence Day, the anthem, the flag are still hugely emotional because of my childhood associations with them through Biji. My daughter is now almost 15 and though she knows to respect the symbols of her country, Indian Independence is something she studies in her history books and takes exams on.

Independence Day doesn't mean as much to gen-next as it did to us; just as it didn't mean as much to us as it did to our grandparents. But that’s how it should be, I think. In many ways it is right and fitting that the past stops being overwhelmingly meaningful to the future.

The future will have its own challenges, its own revolutions, its own battles to fight.

A KAUR BY ANY OTHER NAME...

I beg to differ with you this time, Mr. Shakespeare! What’s in a name? Ask an Indian student with a name other than Christian, who has been to study abroad in the Western World (and especially in the US of A.)

(cartoon courtesy http://www.toonpool.com/)

After they’ve “so not got your name” and asked you to spell it (and still mispronounced it), commented on your colour (“like, you’ve got gold under your skin!”), remarked on your wonderfully “inneresting costume” and wondered at your remarkable mastery over the English language (“and that quaint accent”) they’ll probably want you to tell them your name again.
Your name’s the simplest thing in the world—5 letters, 2 syllables—yet you’ll have to get used to answering to all its mutilated permutations of pronunciation (Renee, Runee, Rainy…)

You don’t know it but you become invisible as soon as you enter a foreign country to work or study. Oh, it takes you a while to realize the fact because physically, you stick out like a sore thumb. Everybody makes much ado about everything you say or do (Oh, wow! Really! That’s so cool!). There are so many questions about your culture, your family, your self. You’ve never had so much attention just because of how you look and what you wear and who you are and you just enjoy it so much.

But slowly, it sinks in. Every time they are surprised, every time you answer the incessant questions, every time you’re patted on the back for understanding a local colloquialism or even just getting the punch line of a joke, you lose a bit of yourself—who you are— without quite knowing it.

Then comes the day you begin to expect the attention and to pre-empt the questions. You’ve worked out the answers the way they’d comprehend them. When they ask you your name, you don’t even bother to just say it—“Let me spell it for you. It’s Ranee as in ‘Ronnie’ and Kaur as in the apple.”

That day, they learn how to pronounce your name correctly but you become Ronnie Core. The rose is no longer a rose.

Your name—you never really think about it until you’ve lived abroad for a fair stretch of time. You’ve never thought about how it relates to you and who you are. It’s just your name. Back home, it works like that little tag you find in your clothes: “Size M, 30% polyester, 70% cotton. Machine wash warm; Tumble-dry low. Made in India.” The moment you tell someone your name it instantly transmits to them the entire surface of your identity: the etymology of the name, the region of your origin, your mother tongue(s), your religion, caste, creed and perhaps even the family you belong to and its standing in your community/society. Your name takes care of all the preliminaries of your identity. It takes care of all the introductions. The moment you’ve pronounced it, it has told everybody who you basically are.

So when your name loses its signifying power, you become invisible. You have to start groping for other ways to define yourself. Your name doesn’t define your givens: ergo, there are no givens. You now have to decide for yourself what is really given you and what you have to give to your universe. Your name does not automatically tie you down to a country a region a religion a family so you are free to decide what you want to be identified with, if anything.

Suddenly, you’re not defined at all. You’re not rooted. You’re just you, whoever you are. Step One: you panic. You cling to your Indian-ness—whatever that means—and overdo it. You rent Hindi movies every weekend. You listen only to Indian music in your car. You have your surrogate “Indian” families you “potluck” with regularly. You wear your interesting costumes more than you ever did back home. In short, you aren’t really being “yourself” at all. You’re just conforming violently to the “western” notion of being “exotic” and “eastern.”

Some people get stuck there and there they stay. Others take the opportunity of looking beyond names (or “tags”) and into people. They surrender themselves to the glorious confusion about who they are and begin the process of “becoming” somebody they really want to be. They become a mass of kaleidoscopic, shifting identities rather than one with a fixed center, focus and pattern. They learn to appreciate each little fragmented brilliantly coloured piece of all those diverse things that make them who they are. They keep collecting more identities from all over the globe. The individual shards of their multiplying identities are quite separate and distinct. They never leak or melt. They never merge and make a new composite. Sometimes they even clash with each other. But the possibilities of their “becoming” are so infinitely rich and endless!

So now you can potentially be Ranee and Renee and Runee and Ronnie and Rainy and every other permutation. You can be at home everywhere, but you become effectively homeless because you see, your home isn’t really home anymore because it excludes all those other homes you’ve known. It becomes harder for you to separate “us” from “them.” You can no longer validate those boundaries of religion or colour—your world cannot be black or white.

All that can happen at the sound of your name on foreign tongues. A rose by another name is no longer a rose. It is another flower in the becoming.

Oh and Mr. Shakespeare, about the second half of that line? Nix that too, would you? What smells “sweet” to you may seem like an olfactory attack to another nose. Let me tell you about the time I cooked my first Indian dinner in a small apartment I shared with American roommates…

The Cream and Scum of Blogging

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 1, the first edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Scum and cream both surface, slimily climbing the fluid staircase of their liquid wombs, sucking life from the amniotic juice that gives them their existence.

Gaining texture, growing layer by layer, both rise to the top, smothering their mother-solution, draining it of all its properties.

Both appear only when the emulsion that gives them life becomes stagnant and complacent.

Yet one is glorified and the other reviled.

Time for us to reflect a bit on value judgments, my friends—one man’s cream may be another’s scum and vice versa!

Scum may feed and sustain while cream clogs arteries and becomes the cause of death.

I’ve always been wary about making decisions on worthiness.

I believe all forms of being, however nanoscopic,--bacteria, virus, algae and all—are whole and universal in themselves and that they are all integral, organic parts of the cells that make up the universes.

Cream and Scum—they are both valuable, both worthy in their own ways, both capable of good and bad effects, both essential in the tasks they are destined to perform.

When I write, or you write, or someone else writes a blog, that writing is an expression of a little part of the universes that are or will be or have the potential of being.

If scum I am meant to be, I aim to be the best scum it is possible for me to be!

The fellow Bloga-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton are Arjuna, Saimanohar, Dhiman, Vipul Grover, Avdi, Daisy Blue, Sid 'Ravan' Kabe, Shankar, Shilpa Garg, Bharathi, Ranee again and Pawan. Click on their respective names to read their posts on The Cream and Scum of Blogging. To be part of the next edition of this online marathon, visit and start following Bloga-Ton.

Wishful Thinking

Let me be an instrument that plays in harmony with the music of the Universes that are and that will be and that have the potential of becoming.

When I die, let me become the spectrum.

I will be black and absorb all colours
I will be white and reflect all colours
I will be red and glow with the energies that fuel the Universes
I will be blue in agreement between the oceans and the skies in all the Universes
I will be green as the tenderness and vulnerability of the birth of every new universe
I will be yellow and shed my warmth and light on every soul in every universe that is and that will be and that has the potential of becoming.

A Sermon

Assume Earth is the womb of an organism we have named “Universe.”

Each living, breathing creature, every natural phenomenon, then, is a cell within this organ of the larger organism that is our Universe.

Each cell, of every colour, shape, size, capacity and talent, has a very specific and vital part to play in the grand scheme of the birth of new generations of Universes.

When the cells perform their tasks in harmony, the Universe hums in contentment and new Universes are born, each perfect in its potential for being and becoming.

When the cells become hostile to each other, when they show aggression towards each other, when they assault each other and kill each other, a cancer is formed. Organs are affected. Systems are diseased. The womb is weakened. The potential foetus is damaged. The gene pool is diminished.

The Universe loses a child, a line, a possibility, a potential…

Cells beget cells. Creatures beget creatures. Life begets life. Worlds beget worlds. Universes beget universes.

There may be a tremendous difference of scale between cells and Universes, but a single defect in a single cell ripples in effects and consequences not only through the Universes that exist but also through those that have the potential to exist.

Every chirp, every bark, every rustle, every waterfall, every chant, every rhythm, every song, every tune participates in the vast, everlasting symphony of the spheres just as every soul of every being participates in the spirit of the Universes that are and that will be and that have the potential of becoming.

Every whimper, every groan, every cry, every slap, every voice raised in anger, every curse given in hate, every howl of pain, every uproar, every gunshot, every explosion, every detonation blasts a false note, a discord, a disagreement, a friction and participates in adding disharmony to the everlasting Universes that are and that will be and that have the potential of becoming.

I believe...(for now, at least!)

I have no fixed and codified self; no identity that has a permanent design.

I am a kaleidoscope of multiple identities; a shifting composite of little, fragmented, brilliantly coloured pieces of all my experiences, all the cities I have inhabited; all the diverse lives I have lived.

I believe there is a precision intelligence behind and beyond the universe.

I believe all forms of being, however nanoscopic, are whole and universal in themselves and that they are all constantly caught in a continuous process of becoming.

I believe each becoming whole is an integral and organic part of some other, bigger and becoming whole and so on, past the becoming universe. Ergo, the universe is intelligent, living, expanding and forever becoming as are the stars, planets and we who inhabit them, bacteria, viruses, algae et al.

I believe it is our duty every moment to desire to find our changing roles in the changing universes and discharge those roles to the best of our capacity as long as they last.

If we are cancerous cells in the kidney of our universe and it is our role for this moment to cause renal failure in order that a nephritic cure might evolve for other universes, then we must fulfill that potential.

On Walking Behind Your Man

There is absolutely no denying or disputing the fact that our Indian society still wants women to follow their men.
The wife, by her very definition in our culture, plays supporting role to her husband who is the hero:
She is अर्धांगिनी (ardhangani), one half of her husband.
She is सहधर्मिणी (sahadharmini), an associate in the fulfillment of his human and divine goals;
She is सहकर्मिनी (sahakarmini), a co-worker in all his efforts
She is सहयोगिनी (sahayogini), a helper in all his ventures.

This has been true from the time of the Vedas:
“I will be the Saaman (music) and may you be the Rk (the Vedic text being cast into music).
Let me be the heavens (the upper world) and let you be the Bhumi or Mother Earth.
I will be the Sukla (life force) and may you be the bearer of that Sukla॥
Let me be the mind and let you be the speech.
May you follow me to conceive children and gain worldly as well as spiritual wealth."

It has been true through Manu’s description of the ideal female partner for a man—who, by the way, should be about one-third his age—
" karyeshu dasi, a slave/servant in her work
karaneshu mantri, with the administrative powers of a minister
bhojyeshu maatha, who can feed you like a mother
shayaneshu rambha, and please you like Rambha in bed
kshamaya dharitri" and who has the forbearance, the patience—the sahanshakti—of Earth

It has been true through Kalidas, who said:
“Women go the way of their husband as moonlight follows the moon or lightning the cloud”
And it is true as propagated by all our immensely popular television serials that begin with the letter 'K'.

Much more, it is still true as lived by millions of women all over India.

Therefore, let’s take that part for granted.
Society desires women to walk one step behind their men.

But does higher social approval come to the women who follow in their husband’s footsteps? Who do not deviate? Who never challenge the norm? Who do the done thing, so to speak?
Therein lies the rub.

Society may expect a woman to be one way, may prescribe a woman’s ideal, but it reserves its approval—its esteem, its appreciation, its recognition, its awards, its admiration, its praise, respect and acclaim—for those women who flout all the expectations and defy its prescriptions.

Think of any Indian woman who has had any impact through myth and legend and history:
Durga, Kali, Draupadi, Rani Lakhshmibai, Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa

Think of any contemporary Indian woman who has achieved social recognition or appreciation—Rekha, Sushmita Sen, Arundhuti Roy, Mira Nair, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Sania Mirza,

You will find that they are all women who do not recognize any social limits on their beings. They are all women who stride way ahead, or go away, or create their own difficult road.

They are all women who do not follow the beaten path.

On the other hand, think of the women who did the done thing:
Sita did every single thing by the book. Did it get her her society’s approval?
Madri was the perfect wife who even committed sati with Pandu. But who gets all the attention? Kunti, a woman with a curious past and her own mind.
Krishna’s wives committed jauhar after him. Do we know their names? The names we associate with Krishna and celebrate and adore are of two of the most deviant women in their society—Radha and Meera.
Littérateurs like Kalidasa and Tulsidas became men of learning because of their wives. Do we know who they were?

It’s very simple, really.
When you follow behind, you remain unseen, unsung, unnoticed—taken for granted and therefore uncelebrated.
When you walk ahead, or walk away, you are seen, followed, recognized, validated.

So ladies:
By all means, walk a step behind your husbands.
Do it so you can support them and prop them up to give the world the illusion that they have a spine.
Don’t expect social approval for doing it.

Feel free to follow in your husband’s footsteps.
Do it so you can clean up his messes and do damage control.
Don’t expect society to validate your hard work and celebrate you for it.

Take the backseat when your husband drives.
Do it so you can drive him where you want to go.
Don’t do it for any respect or rewards from society.

One More Reason to Dis-organise Religion

In religion and politics, fatwas are issued, tankhaiyyas made, idols broken, ancient mosques razed, missionaries burnt alive by mobs.

In real life, however, individuals interact with other individuals. Priyanka’s rich father will react one way to his daughter marrying poor Rizwanur. Anju’s father may react entirely differently.

In real life, Anju marries Husien and they both retain their religions and raise a wonderful, intelligent, sensitive child called Samir who is comfortable with both his mosque and his gurudwara.

In real life, Fatima Bibi runs an old age home in Chennai. She has a Ganesh idol at the entrance and performs Ganesh aarti every Friday and distributes prasadam to her 45 "guests."

In real life, my friend Hulya Celek of Selcuk, daily battles the custodians of her own religion so she can extend the boundaries of her existence just a little bit more.

In real life, Basheer the driver recites the Sikh “mool mantra” every day and that does not detract from his being a good musalman.

In real life, many Muslim women in rural Bengal wear the sindur, bindi, shakha and pala—so called Hindu symbols of a “sadhaba” (a married woman whose husband is still alive.)

Of course, in real life there is also Salim the carpenter, whose past experiences with Hindu households had taught him that water and tea would be served to him in “other” cups and glasses.

And of course, in real life there is Ali, my carpenter of many years, who is a brilliant craftsman and a man of tremendous integrity. But Ali will not eat in my house.

In real life, individuals meet and interact with individuals. In real life, communities are made of the people living in the neighbourhood or going to the same school or joining the same club.

If only the mosques, the temples, the gurdwaras, the churches didn’t form such a big part of real life.

Why This?

Once again that same old same old.

"Why do you write what you do?"
According to some of my anonymous readers, my poems are weird and incomprehensible; my stories are twisted; my descriptive pieces are too detailed; my ramblings about life are really eccentric and in general my stuff is too complicated to read.

The experts, on the other hand, find my writing "really interesting" and advise that my non-fiction is "strong and vibrant" and that my poems are "gnomic" and "aphoristic" with "compelling visual imagery" and that I should leave everything else and concentrate on the poetry and descriptive pieces.

More believing of my anonymous readers, however, I ask myself:
Why do I write?

I can’t sing a sunset or paint my fears; I cannot dance my experiences or play the rhythms of my children on musical instruments. As a child in school, I used to envy my talented friends their natural gifts of expression. When Gargi danced Shiva’s tandav, my heartbeat changed to the pulse of her feet; when Amrita sang "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," my insides melted; when I saw Pinkie's “Rainy Day,” I wanted to pour black poster paint all over mine.

But I never envied anybody’s writing.

So I write because I can.

As for why I write what I do,
I write myself. That's why.