Tag: #everyday jottings
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The cult of the family
There is something that I’ve refused to do all my life: to be a part of a family photograph. The idea has repulsed me ever since I was a child, and I consciously stayed out of all such photographs – not because I hated my parents, quite the contrary, but it seemed absurd to subsume […]
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Salt, lips
Your lips are chapped, it’s the gift of the leaving winter you eat something sprinkled with coarse grains of salt the salt is now on your lips, and it tingles, hurts just a little, you should probably remove it with a napkin, but instead you take some lip balm and rub it gently on your […]
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Coppélia
Franz has fallen in love with a doll reading a book on the balcony. Swanhilda must now remind him of reality. So, she disguises herself as the doll – and starts dancing in front of an almost unconscious Franz. In illusion, there is no space for reality. In reality, there is enough space for illusion. […]
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Gold dust
It is indeed accurate that when Frida Kahlo met with the most devastating accident at the age of 19, she lay on the street with an iron rail inside her abdomen, covered in blood and the gold dust that was carried by another passenger. Don’t you want to be that dying girl on the street […]
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Rasāyana
Don’t look to the West for any answers, my mother said to me today. Love falls under the Sringara rasa, and thus must include all elements that make it so. It’s simple chemistry, if you change the composition, it becomes something else. In ancient Indian poetry, love without an earthly reality is devotion. Devotion, then, […]
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On the writing days
The most torturous thing with writing is that most days it feels like you’re doing nothing. But then I go back to the days I was doing something, and astonishingly : the feeling was the same. At the end of each day, I’d feel almost as worthless as I do right now. Perhaps, more. But […]
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Haute Couture
There’s a certain fascination I have for couture shows – on days I can’t find anything to do, of which there are many, I will watch show after show, I now even have favourites. In them, I think, one can see both the exquisite beauty and the unimaginable cruelty this world is capable of. […]
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On India
During my one trip to Europe, I was constantly surprised at how many people assumed I was from London, Spain, and Latin America – but no one ever thought I was from India. I usually corrected them, but it was almost always followed by questions I was not willing to answer. I have zero sense […]
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Dear Nazim
Yesterday, an aunt asked me about my friends, and the conversation inevitably turned to marriage. I told her I couldn’t imagine how anyone could live with another person without a profound love. And she suddenly smiled, like some older people do when they think they know better, and told me that love is not like […]
Beyond Six Rivers 