Being,Writing, Hollowness and the Zen of it…

Long silences and lonely pauses have kept me constant company these last many weeks. It has been over sixty days since I wrote anything worth reading, or experiencing. This is not “writer’s block”, not existential angst, creative bankruptcy or any form of euphoria that usually fells the writing muse. I haven’t written anything because I choose not to write, I choose to imprison the words, and make them struggle for survival.

Every long silence and lonely pause bears witness to the death of a part of me, there was a time I used to mourn that but that faculty has died too. The inessential falls by the wayside, leaving nothing but a hollowness bound by a shell of what was once essential.

There is a story I once read about a group of Zen students exploring the area around the monastery chancing on an ancient cast iron bell and remarking on its beauty and craftsmanship, when a monk emerged from his home to ring the bell, they commented on the workmanship and in conversation with him asked him how old the bell was. The monk placed his hand on the metal engravings and told them it was over five hundred years old and then he points to the void in the bell and said the emptiness within was eternal. The monk proceeds to ring the bell and once its sound had faded asked the students where the sound came from- whether it was from the metal casing or from the emptiness inside.

When I began this venture of writing one original piece a month, it was with the intent of accomplishing two things, not directly related to the craft of writing, the first was to cultivate discipline and be able to write on cue irrespective of the circumstances surrounding me, essentially an exercise in relentlessness. The second was to learn to sustain the focus and energy on a project, this is my third blog and it’s also the one that’s been up the longest and has the most number of subscribers and people viewing it. Did I meet these objectives? I did, most of the time and definitely in spirit. Is this enough? Not anymore.

Over the last two years, I have used this platform to experiment with new styles, different writing voices, and ideas I found novel. But I always constrained myself to the construct of the short story, largely because there was a time when I thought words were cheap and treated them as such. Authoring a short story helps you understand the value of each word especially when you aspire to speak your piece in a thousand words or less. This two year experiment has helped me be a bit braver about the kind of writing I want to do, the voice of caution and negativity which hounds me every time I write is a bit more muted and I find myself being able to look at the kind of writing I have done and be extremely dissatisfied. The only thing that sates me is that the stories I have authored have potential for being something more and I find myself wishing I could re-write them in a way that uses some more of that potential.

The story of the bell and the Zen students appealed to me because I have been wondering about the quality of my writing and the originality of my writing voice. Every time I read anything I find myself drawn to the experience that a writer shares with the world and the best stories I have read made the writer’s imagination a large part of that experience. Imagination is like that void, the space that’s trapped in the bell- the nothingness that intersects with the real to produce the experience that continues to exist in the ether of nothing. My biggest complaint with my writing is that I did not assert my imagination in a bolder way. In the context of the story of the bell this has led to my writer’s voice sounding like a lot of dull clanging and not enough chiming. That I am able to tell the difference between the two leads me to hope that I have evolved some sense of discernment.

The hollowing out continues and I am loathed to publish anything till I am satisfied it’s reflective of the new voice that’s emerging in this process. I am ending this project in creative productivity; it has achieved more than it was intended to.

Poems which have played on in the background as my thoughts rambled to this realization-

Trappings                                 

The illusion of travel

The illusion of change

The illusion of evolution

How easily we get busy

How easily we confuse ourselves

With the temporary

Identifying with the trappings

With nature’s lovely recipes

For form and space

Forgetting our eternity

Its always a joy when you find inspiration in another human being and when you are able to relate to the emotional process of a shared ambition- in my case to be a better story teller. Sarah Kay is someone I am always amazed by simply because I find my self wanting to be as  bold and courageous with my story voice.

Sarah Kay: How many lives can you live?

Alpha Mike Foxtrot.

Truism #4

You never lose the people you get lost with, not really.

De Papa

We met before you were born,
I knew who you were right away,
How could I not?
You were of my own flesh.

These words sprout fevered and prophetic,
In dream and memory is where we met,
You don’t yet exist, not in the real world,
You haven’t been born yet, not in the real world.


The first vision was of you as a bloodied infant
That lasted for a whisper of a moment and
As I gazed on, you grew and grew till you
A child of three and me thirty something met.


You had just woken from your slumber,
You were looking for a drink of water,
You had a story to tell me and a hug to give
You were looking for me, your father.


Pride, fear and awe are what I remember,
Washing over me like a flood of electric anticipation,
Your intelligence overawed, your insight cut cold,
Your vulnerability made your papa protective.

We parted as I tucked you in, kiss on forehead,
Dimmed the lights in your room and
Stared at you from the door till you fell asleep,
I fought my deepest urge to stay and walked away.


I wept quietly when I woke from this fever dream,
The lonely dark, the darkest dark, the one before dawn,
Was what greeted me, the real world with its unreality,
My fever broken and tears dry; exhausted I slept again.


We met before you were born,
I knew who you were right away,
How could I not?
Till we meet again my sweet.

Personnage Croquis- "Poon"

Poon is the kind of girl that reads well on paper, her vital statistics would tell you that she’s 5’10, has long legs, dark hair and that she’s filled out appropriately in all the right places. They won’t however tell you that she has a penchant for designer high heels and expensive lingerie, or that she volunteers when she can at a soup kitchen. I know this because I know Poon.

We first met years ago when I was a copy editor at a fashion house in Milan, it was at one of those furious after-parties, during fashion week that the industry is notorious for hosting. Her height, angular face and smoke cracked voice made Poon hard to miss. It was one of those first encounters that life packs with enough memories to last a lifetime. The night’s events began with harmless flirtation, spilled on to a Poon inspired brawl, an illegal pig-fight, an unguided tour of a wax museum and had ended in Poon’s fashionable one room, closet like apartment.

These memories flash through me as I find myself looking for the dingy poetry club we decided to meet at when she called me out of the blue two nights ago. It looks like a shady speakeasy from the 20’s on the outside and is stuffed to the brim with people decked in designer doo-dads. Apt, I can’t imagine meeting her anywhere else. I squeeze my way through to a largish man with a clip board manning the narrow entrance and tell him I have a reservation, he shoots me a quizzical glance and bellows- “Name?”, I pause for a second while I regain my lost footing and mumble “…Poon”; “say what?” he bellowed with a slight hint of irritation and I say “Poon… do you want me to spell it?”, he scowls down at his clipboard and his face relaxes as he finds her name on his list, “She’s in there already, go on through”, I thank him as I slide past the annoying fat man next to me blocking a third of the entrance with his protruding belly.

The inside of the club is massive, the ceiling is three storeys high and the floor is littered with flimsy furniture, the kind that’s commonly used in roadside Parisian bistros. It’s dingy and a man on the stage is letting the audience know that the next poet will be up in ten minutes and that they should order drinks in the meanwhile. I find her sitting in a quiet wooden booth, one of many that line the side of the space near the stage, her long legs crossed stylishly and sticking out of the booth, smoking a long, slim cigarette and playing around with a tissue on her table. I make my way through the tiny tables to the booth and wave out to her. She grins broadly and hugs me the way excited school girls do and she drags me into the booth- “You still drink Manhattans right?” and before I can respond she flags down a passing waitress and orders a repeat martini for herself and a Manhattan for me.

We spend the first minute staring at each other in silence, she still had the pixie sparkle in her eyes but she looked more tired now. She sizes me up and tells me she hates me for how good I look right now, I find myself blushing beet and remember that she could always make me blush like that. We start making small talk about our lives, and remark at the similar place we find our lives in, not dating anyone, still tramping about fashion week after-parties when we could, and both of us had moved around a bit. The conversation goes quiet again, the silence weighed heavy and the two years we hadn’t met, made itself felt in the booth. The waitress steps in with our drinks and a poet is introduced on stage, Poon plays with the olives in her glass while I stare at the bald man on stage reading out his poetry.

The piece complete and the audience quiet, the poet starts talking about his politics and beliefs. I turn back to Poon, she is lighting up another cigarette; I ask her why she quit modelling, she grows quiet and stirs her drink - “It stopped being fun…” she exhales smoke and taps the cigarette into the ashtray “ the bullshit got to me- the bitchiness, the asshole photographers, the egomaniacal designers… the whole thing got to me. It was wearing me out…” I stared at her for a while and I told her I didn’t believe her. This made her sullen and she started stirring her drink again “Ok, fine- I screwed up- you remember Johanus?” I nod as I remembered Mark Johanus, a hot shot Austrian designer and his melodramatic tantrums- “I do… what about him?” Poon stubs out her cigarette- “Well I was dating him for about a year- like seriously, and the whole thing was secret. I didn’t want the other girls to know… you know how bitchy they get…anyway so we did this whole secret thing for a year… he was nice, I think he was serious and saw it going somewhere…”  she trailed off and paused to light another cigarette “He said something about getting married and I laughed at the idea- it turned out he was attempting to propose- He had the ring and everything…anyway… so he said he was serious, shows me this massive diamond ring and said that we should do it that day… well… as you can imagine I freaked out and told him he was crazy that we should talk about this…. Well maybe it wasn’t as gentle as that but that’s the gist of what I said”.  A lump forms in my throat and I drink my Manhattan to ease it.

The rejection had its consequences Poon was mysteriously dropped as lead model two weeks before the show, she said something about another fight and how she stormed out of the show on the day. She had packed up her stuff and gone home, her family was concerned at first- “we didn’t really talk or anything, just stuff like “pass the salt”, it was nice to have mama’s food and sleep in my old room but that lasted a couple of weeks and then the questions started, where I was, what I had been up to, why I never called…how they were ashamed… that got to me and I left again”. Poon was seventeen when she ran away from home the first time she left, swearing never to return, and now she had done it again. She stopped talking and stared hard at me- “I don’t like talking about that… fuck this. Do you want another one?” I nodded and she ordered us another round of drinks. The room was filled with applause, the poet had finished talking or performing, I didn’t know and that point I didn’t care. I asked her what she did after she left, she reached for another cigarette but she was out- “ah fuck, just when I need it… do you have any?” I shook my head and tried to get the waitress’ attention to see if she could get us any, but before I could, a swarthy man in the table across from our booth walked up to us and offered Poon a cigarette, she smiled at him wickedly, as she accepted. He introduced himself as Dominic and started talking about how he noticed her from afar and was working up the nerve to speak with her, Poon listened for a bit and nodded politely- “Thanks for the smoke… I was in the middle of a conversation”, Dominic muttered an apology and looked deflated but he walked back to his table with a victorious swagger.

Poon started telling me about her life after modelling, she had travelled around Europe for a bit, living on couches, she managed to land the occasional small modelling jobs wherever she was and that money helped tide her over for a bit. She did this for a year before she ran out of places she could stay in and people she could impose on. Poon was staying with a girl, she used to model with earlier, in Monte Carlo, when she got set up with a job being a casino hostess, the pay was good and the casino let her stay in one of their suites and paid for expenses. She did this for about eight months, but got sick of the old men and needing to be on her guard constantly- the final decision to leave came when someone thought she was a hooker- “I wanted to tell that fat bastard to go fuck himself, but Id learned enough by then, so I kept smiling and told him I wasn’t into that kind of thing and that he needed to go talk to the manager…. I knew what the manager was going to tell me after…. but decided this was enough anyway and I had saved enough money to live well for a few months… so I packed up and left… Nadia was pissed because she got me the job… but she came around later”. Poon then moved to the US and found a job with an event management company, the money wasn’t as glamorous but it was enough to live comfortably and the job kept her travelling so she didn’t really spend enough time in anyone place to make friends and kept to herself at work, there was the occasional lover but nothing serious or real.

Poon sounded uncharacteristically bitter as she finished talking, but that went away by the time our next round of drinks arrived and her eyes lit up again. We spoke about where I had been, my temporary switch over to “serious journalism”, the time I had spent in SE Asia trying to write my Pulitzer worthy story and about how spent I was with the whole experience before I decided to move back to NY.

We talked about the night we first met, the idiotic brawl those two Italian studs had over who was going to buy her the next round, the crazy pig fight, how we broke into to wax museum to get away from the police who raided the place and about how we spent the whole night talking in her one bed closet like room. We laughed till our sides hurt and our eyes began to tear up… for a minute Poon looked like how she did the first night I met her.

It was late by the time we left the club and we were headed in opposite directions, Poon gives me a tight hug and it felt like she didn’t want to let go- “hey… it felt soooo good to see you… lets talk more often ok?”, I promised her we would and she slid into her waiting taxi. I wave at the taxi as it pulls away and start walking, the basking warmth of our meeting making me smile. But as I walked on, a sickening realisation crept up on me- I didn’t know when I would see her again and I pulled my jacket closer around me. The night felt a bit colder than it was.

Truism #3

You snap out of it one day and find yourself masturbating to a twenty year old porn movie at Three AM. 

The only truth your soul will allow you to see then is, that you are alone. 

All alone.

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Enlightenment is free.

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Hafeem haze

We spoke of dreams you and I,
Dreams induced by that narcotic high.

When we, that's you and I, became one,
That hafeem haze cleared to reveal-
Tree lines that felt like ocean waves,
Stars that looked like Gogh’s exploding orbs,
Wispy clouds, which made quiet whooshing sounds.


The blurred people faces that all looked alike,
Asked me in a single voice what it felt like


Like a dream said I-
A dream where I am also the dream,
A dream I couldn't tell the beginning or end of,
A dream where the dream wondered,
What I am like when not in this narcotic shroud.

Pour une fille vraiment comme I

In a wild patch of garden tended by none,
A cocoa hued Orchid sought the sun,
Rare but lone, wildness and beauty it goads,
Fit for princes but surrounded by toads.

Weep not for even in being you are desired,
Weep not for even in being you are prized,

Weep not for even in being you are.

Personnage Croquis- "Chotta"

Chotta is a difficult man to miss, he is spectacularly bald, stone faced and is almost always attired in indigo coloured jeans, monochromatic custom sneakers, a shirt with pinkish hues and, the soon to be iconic, Nehru jacket. As we greet each other and sit down for our meeting it is difficult to ignore the feeling that Chotta is seated in the eye of a storm of nervous energy. While his aura exudes an eerie calm that seems almost entirely contained within him, the energy around our table is positively frenetic.

The lone waiter at the café, we were meeting at, seemed twitchy and anxious to serve our table much to the chagrin of other patrons at the establishment, the child at the table next to ours tries hard to stifle a wail that’s building up inside of him and an attractive woman in a red shirt is trying hard to stay focused on the book she is reading while stealing glances at our table. The whole setup made me feel like I was sitting in the epicentre of something marvellously bizarre. We place our orders with the eager to serve waiter- I order a cup of earl grey tea and Chotta, his usual- diet coke in a chilled glass topped to the brim with ice, he emphasises the need for ice as he orders.

The order is the same wherever he goes, his clothes are similar and so is his need to have his back to the wall wherever he sits- the need for consistency, I realise, is the unifying theme in the Chotta paradigm. We begin to speak, catching up on the factual aspects of our life, it had been a year since our last meeting and much had changed. We quickly cut through the details and start swapping notes on mutual acquaintances and friends, our drinks arrive and Chotta smiles approvingly at the waiter as he leaves behind a tall glass and a full ice bucket, “Thoughtful chap, we must tip him well before we leave” he says as he gleefully tops his glass with ice.

The clinking of ice and glass, the hiss of opening a chilled can of diet coke and the bubbling hiss of the liquid hitting the ice in the glass seemed to change Chotta and he drinks the first sip with great relish and wave of relief sweeps over him. As I watch this almost ritualistic act, I cant help but notice that the energy around us changes, it loses its anxiety inducing edge, and a wave of calm sweeps over me- I let my guard down and we start talking again.

Chotta describes his aesthetic sensibilities and the influences that helped them evolve -“I seek minimalism and consistency in a visual frame, it doesn’t need to tell a linear story, although I am partial to that; I need to be able to frame that particular moment in reality as simply and efficiently as possible while retaining an other worldliness about it. I sense my style has been influenced by the kind of film, literature and philosophy I was exposed to in my late teens and early twenties- I found myself drawn to pan-asian cinema, deconstructionist, subversive and efficient writing and was pulled to study Zen, Taoism and the monastic practices of various faith systems. The one common thread through all of these was the insatiable need to strip away the inessential- to exist without anything more than what was needed”. The conversation pauses as a noisy gay couple walk into the café, everyone instinctively looks up to see the new entrants, and they go back to what they were doing.

Chotta and I make some small talk about his recent move to Bombay and his efforts at educating himself about Bollywood and its evolving sensibilities, his humility and relentless drive to learn made me feel pompous for feeling so secure in the little I know, he describes his first Bollywood experience-“ I was at a party, a friend invited me to, …surrounded by extremely attractive people and everyone seemed to be there for something more than just the party- I remember being asked what I did for a living and when I said I was a film-maker, ears perked and all attention was on me for the next thirty seconds till I told them I hadn’t yet finished my first project, I was grilled about my industry pedigree and on realising I had no ties, eyes glazed over and I was back where I began a keen observer of happenings around. It was stunning to see how different the backdoor conversations were and how keenly aware of world cinema people seemed to be- it made me feel like I had to get my game up”. Chotta signs to the waiter to get another coke and the bill, he looks at his, authentic looking, knock-off Breitling and apologises that we cant talk any longer than the next twenty minutes. He has an appointment with a screenwriter who may be able to translate his creative vision and he does not want to be late.

We start talking about the future and what his plans are “ I had, when I was younger, a vision for where I would be in ten years but that timeline was entirely unrealistic and impossible to accomplish. I gave myself a hard time for not meeting those objectives as quickly… but over the last year I have realised that sometimes it takes an entire lifetime to accomplish anything that is meaningful or truly reflective of your creative vision in this space and I am giving myself that time to build the right networks, and be influential enough to assert my vision”. When I ask him about commercial cinema and the compromises one needs to make to the creative vision to complete a project, he grows silent and seems lost in thought “I have learnt, painfully, that you don’t get in the real world the reality you see in your head when it comes to making cinema, and good cinema that appeals to a larger audience… it may not necessarily reflect what I think is “awesome” or “good”- The few projects I have been involved in made me realise that compromises become necessary, especially when patience and resources are scarce- the important thing, sometimes, is getting the message across”.

The bill arrives, Chotta pulls out a customised silver money clip which hold a stack of thousand rupee notes- he notices me gawk and smiles at me and only says these words as he pays the bill with exact change “…my life savings”, we hug and he leaves. As I sit down and complete the last few sips of tea in my cup, impressions of the meeting swim around in my head and I am left feeling like someone put out a warm fire and the cold made itself known, there was no yearning for the warmth again just a comfort that I knew what that warmth felt like. I throw in some extra cash for the tip and leave.

The straight and narrow

The two men sat opposite each other, sharing a pot of coffee in a busy side walk café. They had stopped loving each other years ago, and neither of them knew it at the time but this was the last time they would share a moment as intimate as they were experiencing now; a comfortable silence over a pot of coffee in a crowded side-walk café.

They fell in love with each other on a whim on an idle day, a September many years ago. Simon’s eager eyes and forcefully suppressed manner had appealed to Raj for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend. A hostile courtship followed that month, and Raj’s delicate subterfuge and manipulation appeared to have broken through Simon’s protestations and moral vicissitudes. Raj’s bashful adolescent bravado had a charm that grew on Simon. Raj had a measured coolness when he proposed that they be more than friends, Simon was preparing for the question but was not ready for it when it came that cold 3 AM morning in a gaudy neon lit café.

Love.
Music.
Soul.
Heaven.
Invincibility.
Perfect.
One year later.

Simon left that cold December to visit family, their first real trial of separation- tears were shed, promises
made, hearts were steeled. Yes they would pine for each other but Simon had not seen his family for a year, Raj understood but couldn’t stop how he felt that way. He told himself to “man up”, not be emotional to take things in his stride, but that did little to allay this burgeoning sense of fear and shame. Fear because he had never felt this weak before, fear because he was afraid Simon might not come back the same, and deep shame because of who he had become- a homo like the ones they show on TV, like the ageing queens he met at parties and swore would never wind up like. He had given his heart to Simon but he could not be trusted, this was Simon’s first time in a relationship, what if he changed his mind, what if he decided he was not gay and Raj was just an experiment? What if? What if? What if? …

The months passed, Simon had returned recharged and eager to slumber in his lover’s arms, but came back to a more distant Raj. He didn’t say anything at first but Raj became more distant as the weeks went by; he refused to engage in any conversation that was more than superficial and became critical if Simon got emotional or sentimental, he could sense a rage and anger which he hadn’t noticed before. Simon and Raj used to luxuriate in each other every time they made love entire afternoons would pass by and it would feel like they had been there only minutes but that was now a twenty minute session after which Raj bathed and slept on the sofa in the living room while pretending to watch television. Simon was frightened of this side of his lover, but too frightened to cry and wildly confused - he felt used and unwanted.

Rape.
Fears.
Tears.
Confessions.
Reconciliation.
Aloof.
Adults.
Another year later.

Raj begged forgiveness and had spent an entire afternoon, weeping, in Simon’s lap, he resolved to never let his pride and paranoia come between them again and for the first time in an entire year had felt light and free. Things were going to be fine; it would be like those first few months when they fell in love. All seemed well in the weeks that followed, but the year of abuse had left Simon bitter and ill tempered. He would over react emotionally and Raj racked by guilt would indulge him his every whim. Simon would say and do things out of spite and test Raj’s affections for him. Raj indulged and yielded ground, he felt emasculated but he still yielded. Raj was becoming like those homo lap-dogs he detested, but he was at fault, amends had to be made and nothing would come between Simon and him again.

Raj grew angrier by the day, and he couldn’t understand why he did, but he did. He hated himself and hated how he began to fear Simon’s moodiness.

An out of town conference.
A two penny prostitute.
Manhood.
Power.
Reclamation.
Twelve months later.

Their relationship was now stagnant; they spent the better parts of their day working and associating with their separate social circles, when they met it was usually for a quiet dinner or for moody sex. Conversation was scant and cordial. Their fights were not as bitter but the venom stayed longer, each eyeing the other for any slip that could be blown out of context.

Each secretly hoping the other would end it.

The two men sat opposite each other, sharing a pot of coffee in a busy side walk café. They had stopped loving each other years ago, neither of them knew it at the time but this was the last time they would share this moment as intimate as they were experiencing now; a shared comfortable silence over a pot of coffee in a crowded side-walk café.

Kiss.
Fast car.
ICU.
Morgue.

The death rattle of an original voice

Everything feels different, I wake up one morning and it feels like I am living someone else’s life in someone else’s body. The memories of this person, I seem to be possessing, are like hills hiding behind a veil of mist, hazy yet solid. Solid because you believe that hills are solid. The routines this body is used to, feel alien and comfortable; it wakes up at six in the morning and occupies the next twenty minutes cleaning its teeth and washing its face, it gets dressed and goes out to meet another body they exchange greetings and both bodies run.

Its cold but I know this because I imagine it must be cold, not because I feel cold.

Breakfast conversation, the crinkling sound of the newspaper, dropping my brother to his school, the rickshaw driver who gets us there, the ten kilometre ride to the office, crossing the street and entering the gates, being asked to display an identity card, that’s always in the left pocket because the right hand carries a backpack, the thirty meter walk to the building I work in, the familiar electronic beep the precedes the door opening, the cool blast of recycled air, the bare cubicle, a lone, random quote by Carl Sagan adorning the bare cubicle walls. The body heaves, sighs and hurls itself into the blue chair and proceeds to set up a laptop sourced from the back pack its been carrying. The body feels somnolent and sighs again.

I feel sad.

Who is this person? Why does all of this feel so familiar and comfortable? Why do I feel like I am indulging a voyeuristic fantasy I once had? How does this end? Is there an ending?

I know the life I see is not mine, but that’s all I know.

It’s been three days….