Can I write at all?

A writer I'm reading the the mo, Toni Morrison, reportedly said, "Writing is really a way of thinking - not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet." She also said somewhere that she didn't intend to do without that way of thinking.

In my own life, moments when I can articulate my own thoughts are like oases in an arid waste. I've been writing an essay on a novel that I mentioned yesterday, Sula.  And unraveling the structure of the novel, getting inside the skin of the characters, cracking the metaphors - all this has brightened up my days and kept me going this holiday season.

Will there come a time when even this will bore me? I shudder to think....

But the question I'm really thinking of is, "Can I write at all?" Or am I only able to critique someone else's work? Or slightly better, write something inspired by someone else's structure or story? Or at best, write about myself and my fears and my hopes and my dreams....

I feel soon I will have to make the call and give myself that chance. I've been working full-time and writing during long weekends when there isn't any scope for office-work even if people wanted it. But it has been snatched, hurried and botched.

Tomorrow I might post a short story I tried to write in the summer.

Answer to my Prayers

In Toni Morrison's Sula, a little girl, Nel, prays, "I want... I want to be... wonderful. Oh, Jesus make me wonderful." In The Bluest Eye by the same author, a little black girl had prayed for blue eyes. Why do Morrison's characters never have their prayers answered? I'm re-reading some of her books and this question keeps popping into my head.

I too know a thing or two about unanswered prayers. Ten years ago, while studying at film school, I had dedicated myself to God. I prayed and said to God that I wanted to use my talents for His greater glory. I've never made a film since. I also asked for a life partner. I'm still single.

A couple of years ago I spoke about this to a Cor Episcopa (I belong to the Indian Orthodox Church) and he told me, "Cast your net on the other side." Subsequently I've tried to study more, get another job, travel... Stonewalled everywhere.

And yesterday, on Christmas, I was thinking about all this and praying. Then I opened the Bible and found Ezekiel 4:8 before my eyes. "And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege." Yes I've read the verse before and there was even a time when I used to wonder if it applied to me. (My mother says when you pray and open the Bible at random you come upon what's in your own heart at that moment.) Yesterday this verse was very far from my mind and I was astonished. 

Before I end I want to add that there was a time when I was unsure if Jesus is merely the Son of God and a very high prophet or if he is God Himself. But you know how faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God. I now believe Jesus is King of kings, Lord of lords, Master of masters and the one who is in the midst of the throne and, yet, the one who takes the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne - o mystery - and that this Jesus is God. (Revelations 5:6-7)

Despite the years that have passed in waiting, I'm full of hope. I know that the vision is yet for an appointed time and in the end it will speak....

As I sit down for evening prayer, I ask that tonight, Jesus, you will speak to me. That will be enough for me.

It's Christmas ...

... and I'm lonely! And I wish for an encounter with Jesus himself.

Meanwhile, I'm munching cake and singing along to Fairytale of New York, same as last year. Hope next year will be better.

Jesus, Lord of lords, Master of masters and King of kings, we remember you this day and thank you for meeting our needs. We pray you will look down upon our family and our friends and help them come closer to you.

For we know that every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

A Heart of Flesh

A script I wrote some months ago for a faith-based television programme... it wasn't commissioned though :-( Thought I'd share it with everyone

When was the last time my heart swelled with pain … upon seeing someone else’s suffering?

When was the last time my spirit sent up a spontaneous and fervent plea – “Stop Lord!” – unable to behold someone else’s pain… because the sight touched me to the quick?

Was it back when I was a child? Used to being thwarted and chastened by those more powerful than I? And feeling a sense of solidarity with others similarly powerless. 

Some of us are still tender-hearted way past our childhood – but our heart beats wildly only when we see an animal suffer or a homeless child. We don’t really cry inner tears for that friend who has failed an exam, the neighbour who faces financial ruin, the colleague who is dissatisfied with life or the distant relative who is battling addiction. Better them than us, we say don’t we, in the heart of our hearts?

We, middle class Indians, children of stable marriages, ourselves in societally-sanctioned stable marriages, having children we’re proud of, homes we’re proud of, friends we can depend on… we’re cocooned in our large comfort zones. 

We don’t have the breakdown of the family, the crippling loneliness and self-doubt that some other societies grapple with on a daily basis. Buffered by our family and friends, we spend our entire lives untouched by the brokenness, the poverty of spirit that is so precious in the eyes of the Lord.

Sure we feel rage when we see injustice and poverty. But does it go deeper? To a more sincere level? I’m talking of the compassion for another that rocks one's sense of well-being. The fellow feeling that is almost unbearable in its intensity. It is actual physical pain – in the region of the heart.

Of course we all do our bit – we pay our tithes and taxes, treat our servants fairly, pray sincerely, or try to pray sincerely, for world peace and end to global hunger. But in all our well-meant actions, we’re only as one rending our clothes when God has called us to rend our hearts. 

It may sound harsh but until we have experienced what it means to be broken we won’t know what beauty brokenness may hold. What it means to “feel”. They are precious… the attempts to step out of our comfort zones.

Where my heart is...

“If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders.”

My heart must be in very many things... for my mind wanders sometimes to pleasant visions of a triumph over vagueness for a precise phrase, sometimes to painful (and abandoned) attempts to attain my filmic voice, sometimes to dreams of my own home and the children I don’t have (would I make a good mother?), sometimes to my memories and sometimes merely to visions of a toned down body – face to feet.

I should’ve attained all but the weight loss bit by now, since I’m in my 30s :-)

Not that I’ve not gone after the complete list. I have. But with 20/20 hindsight, I see my attempts were not as sustained and tenacious as they should have been. What I cared about most deeply I chased more than the rest – writing regularly (and reading a lot of critical theory) studying photography (after doing directing, screen-writing and editing at film school)…. As a female auteur with no money, there came a point where I needed guidance and assistance. In any society you’d need much networking and risk-taking to be productively creative. But my background being very non-artistic and religious I was pointed in the direction of the Almighty Himself.

Was it better this way? Should I have turned instead to people – teachers, “friends”, former colleagues, perhaps gotten an influential boyfriend? But I feared outside voices and directions would serve only to drown my fledgling inner voice.

I chose to believe the following verse – And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. How wonderful it sounded… I followed where it led.

And where has it led? Brokenness, simplicity, self-knowledge, a bit of certitude. That’s it I guess… though now that I write it I realise it’s quite a bit.
 
My family say I’ve had my feet in two separate boats and that’s why I’ve got nowhere. They quote the book of James: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways" and say I’ve chased art and Heaven (without realising it) at the same time.

Perhaps they are right. I’m beginning to reconcile my desire to make a living as a creative with my aspiration for Heaven. Let’s see what lies ahead.

What the Thunder said not

This afternoon I woke up desolate from an afternoon nap. I’m on study leave for a couple of weeks and fell asleep when the math got too much for me.

When I feel negative I try to see if the word of God has anything for me. So I came upon Psalm 29 – “…the God of Glory thundereth…” Yes, there was thunder and rain this afternoon.

There was a time when I would have rejoiced at the coincidence. I used to think the monsoons were special on account of this very Psalm. Was God speaking through thunder to us who were too busy to heed His voice?

My grandmother, who was an evangelist in her abler years, used to fear lightning. So my mother once told me. Truth is even Mummy will not stay outdoors in thundery weather. Why the fear I asked once. Because lightning has been known to fall on people, she answered. We were in Kerala then, where the rains last from May to December. It was July when this conversation happened – the thick of the noisy monsoons. And Mummy went back in saying I should get back in too. But I stayed in the porch, eating mango and breadfruit, and wondering if God saw me... would say something to me.

Once, desperate to get answers about whether I could and should be an artist, I asked the question of the lightning-lit sky and waited to hear the answer. I told myself that if, immediately after I articulated the question in my heart, there were a long clap of thunder it would be a yes and if there were silence or a short clap, a no.

The careful part of me asked the question again... to be sure.

Silence greeted me second time though not the first. Or the third, ha ha ha!

I gave up. Could Satan use the sound of thunder I wondered… to mislead the simple? After all he used the forces of nature to destroy Job’s family and wealth, sanction though he had from the Almighty. I had not the courage to probe further…

Suffice to say I haven’t gone back to this dicey method of getting answers though questions I have several still. God’s voice might be still and small, I accept. Now to hear it Lord…

By the way, I still love the light and sound show in the sky.

They people my dreams a lot...

What Do You Represent?

My dreams are more interesting than my everyday life. I usually dream about the same 5 or 6 people. Some of these people are not surprisingly… my sisters… a housemaid called Lata we had in the late 80s - a lovely girl who was slightly older than us and was like a cousin if not a sister. Lata used to sleep on a foldaway bed next to ours and kept her clothes in bags on the floor just next to my pillow. We two were the same size. I used to borrow her clothes sometimes. (Four tall young girls, full of dreams of the beautiful life that surely lay ahead, cooped up in a small room). Lata pops up occasionally in my dreams. I wake up expecting to see her in the adjacent bed. The room looks very different now with me as the sole occupant. What can I say? Back then I yearned to get away from it all and now will give anything to go back to it. Yes, I miss Lata and my sisters.

Among the other people I dream about frequently are not the following: the best friend from school, college or later; the horrendous relatives who made our childhood hell; any of my cousins; or even my parents whom I still have with me.

Of course, like you too (probably) I frequently dream about being back at school... and in my dream the school campus is peopled with present-day colleagues and other acquaintances... and we are all grown up. I won’t bore you further with that.

Anyhow, what surprise me are the frequent dreams I have about a couple of people whom I barely knew when our paths had crossed. One is an ex-colleague whom I would meet when they came to the same press conferences as I. They would talk very loudly I remember. Once or twice, I met them at the campus I studied in in England. I don’t recall much more of them except that they wore yellow a lot. And for all their loudness, they were a very polite person. They represented a more privileged upbringing and also a kind of social naiveté that I found very sweet. I think I envied them deeply. I dream about them at least once a month - usually insipid dreams. Though they never came out of the closet many of us suspect they are gay.

The other person I dream about a lot is someone who studied and worked with me briefly. They would dye their hair different colours. I have dreams where I see my back is wounded and this colourful-haired person is looking the other way but seems to be waiting for me to ask for help.

These two people have nothing in common that I know of, coming as they did from different countries, cultures and races. I'm not in touch with them, sadly.

Nighty night.

A short story on predestination

Who shall it be?

They had been young together. One short and heavy set, the other tall and lean. Fast friends. Neither fought over or competed with the other for a male. Each envied the other and was inwardly enraged about the perceived inferiority to the other. Was there love? Of what account that? Both found romantic love elsewhere and parted ways. And never thought of looking back. Both queens of their realms and reluctant to go back to being the underdog to a mere female. Both products of their families, societies, cultures… you know. You are a product too.

The two girls thought they were rebels but really only wanted to be Miss India, marry a hi-flying achiever, bear only sons and be well-respected in society. They had their wishes granted – all except the Miss India thing though they both looked alright. And aged well, which they cared desperately about. One nursed secret contempt for everyone she met and knew. The other bent everyone to her will with charming heavy-handedness. Oh they worshipped power. And sought the powerlessness they had glimpsed in the other all their lives. Each missed the other’s presence. Each wished the other well and each feared her wish would be granted.

Both knew the verse: “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left” and shuddered each time they came upon it.

He Who Started a Good Work

I turn 30 this weekend. How should I measure my life? My memories and people I’ve known? Is that any less important than what might lie ahead? I measure my life by the people I’ve known. One or two of them helped me come closer to God.

I’m a sports reporter at a television news channel. I have a lovely wife and a 3-year-old daughter. We are expecting our second child this fall. We take care of my parents. My father recently retired as typesetter from a small Hindi newspaper. He worked night shifts for years. This story is not about him though. It’s about someone who called me “son” only once but went the extra mile for me…. You know the Bible verse, “He who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished….” Not sure about the chapter and verse but really like the words. Always bring to mind Anthony Sir and my days as a junior long jump player. I didn’t go very far in the sport… just far enough to be where I am now. Which is farther than I deserve to be, all things considered.

Often, I pass by the lower middle class colony near Gandhi stadium in the heart of Delhi where I was born and raised. Sometimes, in dreams, when I least expect it, I’m back in my childhood. In some of them I’m taken back to my 16-year-old self. In reality I’m glad to have gotten out of those stressed times. But today, I will give anything to feel my pulse race as it used to back then… each time I saw someone leap across the long jump pit inside the stadium gates. I can do that, I would think. Images of winning… inter-zonal matches and who could say, but inter-state matches too, would rise in my mind. And each time, I would tell myself to only qualify for a sports-quota certificate… so I could go to college… at Delhi University. I was a government school boy you see and knew a thing or two about being practical. All that poverty, the straitened circumstances, being in a classroom full of kids from poor to very poor backgrounds… made you not want to aim too high yet desperate for the dizzy heights of success.

Every so often, I would compete with my mates at seeing how far down the cricket pitch I could land in a single leap. A little more than a quarter of the pitch. And further than the other lads. I told myself this talent was given me for a purpose.

One day, without telling anyone, I went through the gates of Gandhi Stadium down to the long jump pit. I was one of 3-4 new boys at the scene. I think that was the first time Anthony Sir laid eyes on me. It was the late 1990s and the government was trying to promote sports. Coaches at local sports arenas and of course this stadium, were looking for new talent. I knew that. He asked us new lads to have a go. I remember I didn’t manage much over 17.5 ft. I think someone or the other crossed 18 ft.

What did the man see? I had no spikes, no formal training, was at a school where there was no long jump team… and told me to come for regular practice.

And so at exactly 3 pm each day I would be at the long jump pit.

I was in high school that spring and should have been preparing for pre-board examinations. I was an above average student... with proper guide books, tuitions and sustained study, could perhaps have excelled. But there was not money enough for all that. And you know Delhi University. Were I to get an A grade it would still be difficult to get a college seat for which tens of thousands competed. The other option was a sports quota entry. Though I would have to beat even tougher competition there. It was time to choose – academics or sports. In the end the choice was easy.

Anthony Sir had got a corporate house – I think it was a cigarette brand – to sponsor a few kits for boys from deprived backgrounds. I got a set. The new shoes ha ha ha! They were awkward at first… I think I was in love with them! My wife has still got them somewhere. They made the running and leaping easier. Anthony Sir trained me to change my natural style of running, taking off and landing. Then there were more talented boys I could ape. I practiced measuring my steps without losing speed or crossing the foul line… to propel myself and remain in the air for as long as I could. I learnt to circle my arms and keep my hands at the sides of my feet. It was thrilling and frustrating at once.

Anthony Sir was the main coach and kept an eagle eye on the performances. He was impatient you know and was known to have cut a fellow or two to the quick with words of disapproval… though he took him aside for that. I too got it… but only once. When it happened I was enraged as much with myself as with him.

One day I hit 19 ft three jumps in a row. How did I feel… elated, scared, hopeful, doomed even? Probably all of these. Couldn’t I play at the zonal level now and get a merit certificate? Couldn’t I then qualify for University selection rounds? Yes, if I improved my performance I could….

The next day I walked up to Anthony Sir and asked if I could get a place in our zone’s long jump squad. The zonals were held every fall. And when it was put up, I found my name on the list. I don’t know how he managed it. It was him no doubt. There were other equally talented boys – as much his students as I – and places on the squad should already have been sealed....

Why did he do it? Had he helped me because I was Christian like he was? Maybe yes, maybe no… but the other boys had too much respect for him and they would not not know... in this country our antennas are always up for that sort of thing. Maybe he had been a budding long jumper in his youth and I reminded him of himself… Maybe he saw I was putting my all into the sport. Perhaps he felt sorry for me. To be honest I didn’t really dwell on it back then. I merely thought life owed me something. I took what help came my way as God’s bounty to me, His chosen one. Chosen for what? I didn’t know. Ha ha ha!

No, what I was really occupied with and baffled by was the part of me that was not enjoying long jump. I was relieved to have made it to the squad but as the stakes went up, I was undermined by doubt. Suddenly I had a vision of more sophisticated, inscrutable fellows, for whom I would be no match. Deep down, I felt I had made it thus far because Anthony Sir had helped me along. Where was my own merit? To really achieve something I had to jump much farther than 19 ft. I knew in my heart I couldn’t. Or was it that I didn’t want to? To make the physical leap I had to first make the leap in my mind. As the zonals approached, I tried to. But there was a block somewhere.

I remember the day before the zonals very clearly. In the practice sessions, I kept running out of steam or crossing the foul line. Under pressure and all over the place…. Every moment I was calling to God within – about the zonals... our finances, my future... But in those moments I heard no signalling thunder, no rush of a helpful breeze… only a silence that didn’t help.... Time was so short. If only something or someone would break the loser’s mould that was setting on my mind...

Only Anthony Sir came to mind.

One thing we lads all knew was he never stayed at the stadium after 8 pm due to family responsibilities. Not sure what they were but something to do with a wife who I seem to recall had miscarried more than once. Anyhow, in my desperation I thought nothing of knocking on his door well past 8. What appeared to be several generations were at dinner. Perhaps he didn’t want to slam the door on a student in front of his family; maybe he saw I badly needed his steady presence… “Ok…alright… downstairs” he said.

In the parking lot, I remember he coughed a couple of times, and looked on as I tried to reach 19.5 ft and failed. But I remember I didn’t cross the foul line even once. But he said the words the sting of which hurt for a long time – ‘If it’s only college you want son, I know someone at the Registrar’s Office at DU.’

I’m sure I betrayed no emotion. Inwardly I felt ashamed. Outed, insulted. As if he were telling me he had inched out more dedicated guy on my account… all for my short-sighted goal? I don’t remember how I replied… Actually, I think I didn’t reply.

The next day, as I took my 3 tries, it was as if I were watching myself from outside. I saw the self pity, I saw the selfishness, I saw the desperation… And instead of giving in to the despair I said a prayer – ‘Lord, if college is not part of Thy plan help me forget about it… only don’t banish me from Thy sight.’

It wasn’t I who jumped. My body jumped while I was somewhere else. There was a sense of surrender – much like the moments after a long jump take off, only extended. That day, I didn’t reach 19.5 ft. But there’s a certificate to prove I was tied at third place.

Yes, I got the merit certificate… which had been my goal till last night.

Anthony Sir walked up to me. The slap on the back was strained for both of us. I was seething on account of his blunt speech. Though I didn’t look at his face, I sensed he was furious I had broken his rule of keeping the home separate. I sensed he was also relieved for my sake.

In the months that followed, he didn’t lift his hand from above my head. Other players had begun to look murder at me. I just shut out the background noise and tried to see how far I could really jump. By the next summer, when the university selection rounds were held, I was crossing 19.5 ft.

But it was like a noisy dream had slowly come to an end. My love-hate relationship with long jump did get me into college via the sports quota, and occasionally I even represented my college at sports meets. However by then I had vowed never to play competitively once college was over. Once college was over I never met Anthony Sir. For a long time I didn’t even think I might need to be grateful to him for saying the words that led me to that crucial point of surrender.

I never met another teacher like Anthony Sir. And no person, teacher or other, has helped me quite as much again, through a bleak childhood and after. But the memory of those few summers have lasted me till now. I still trust the forces that govern my life. I know, for sure, that God is at work in me….

I will look Anthony Sir up one day, but not now. It is enough that I can thank God for him. It’s enough that I am certain of a place in Heaven, because I know I have an advocate in God Himself… the finisher of my faith.

My first short story in 10 years

He Who Started a Good Work

I turn 30 this weekend. How should I measure my life? My memories and people I’ve known? Is that any less important than what might lie ahead? I measure my life by the people I’ve known. One or two of them helped me come closer to God.

I’m a sports reporter at a television news channel. I have a lovely wife and a 3-year-old daughter. We are expecting our second child this fall. We take care of my parents. My father recently retired as typesetter from a small Hindi newspaper. He worked night shifts for years. This story is not about him though. It’s about someone who called me “son” only once but went the extra mile for me…. You know the Bible verse, “He who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished….” Not sure about the chapter and verse but really like the words. Always bring to mind Anthony Sir and my days as a junior long jump player. I didn’t go very far in the sport… just far enough to be where I am now. Which is farther than I deserve to be, all things considered.


Often, I pass by the lower middle class colony near Gandhi stadium in the heart of Delhi where I was born and raised. Sometimes, in dreams, when I least expect it, I’m back in my childhood. In some of them I’m taken back to my 16-year-old self. In reality I’m glad to have gotten out of those stressed times. But today, I will give anything to feel my pulse race as it used to back then… each time I saw someone leap across the long jump pit inside the stadium gates. I can do that, I would think. Images of winning… inter-zonal matches and who could say, but inter-state matches too, would rise in my mind. And each time, I would tell myself to only qualify for a sports-quota certificate… so I could go to college… at Delhi University. I was a government school boy you see and knew a thing or two about being practical. All that poverty, the straitened circumstances, being in a classroom full of kids from poor to very poor backgrounds… made you not want to aim too high yet desperate for the dizzy heights of success.


To be continued...