Habitation by Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

The edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire

The Balancing Act

It’s a difficult task

Precariously balancing

My face on my neck

Will it fly away

Like a balloon without a string?

Will it fall on the ground

And break into unsymmetrical pieces?

Will it evaporate into hot air?

Sublimate into nothingness

Or will the water I pour on my head

Erode it gradually?

A tightrope act

Lest the disembodied features

Float in mid-air.

The Toilet of Venus

The National Gallery in London has over 2500 paintings. Obviously, when one goes around trying to absorb it all, the images start to collapse into each other. Yet, I remember this one in particular by Diego Velásquez. As the guide positioned our group in front of this painting, I had several facetious thoughts at once which is I guess bound to happen when one comes from a country where only religious mendicants and very old people avail the liberties of bare flesh and stands in front of a classical nude. In any case, I remember thinking of nudes as sophisticated pornography for the rich. It is, in fact, not completely erroneous to think the rich men who commissioned these paintings for their boudoirs and the male artists who painted them shared in the male gaze directed at the female model who never returns the look but always looks away. This painting, however, has so much more going on than any of the Susannah bathing series which is so much more voyeuristic in its perspective. The Venus depicted here does not possess classical features but if you look in the mirror appears to have a more ordinary, low-brow if you will, face. To place this subject in a tradition of classical nudes was quite revolutionary. What is even more interesting is the history of its possession. It survived the Spanish Inquisition hidden behind curtains and secret doors. The curtain, of course, enhanced the voyeuristic effect of the painting. It made its way to an individual in Yorkshire who, having spent a lot of money in acquiring this painting, wanted to display it proudly to the public. However, the problem was that displaying such a painting would be offensive to ladies that would be present in his house. His solution was to hang it above his six-feet tall fireplace. This decision was based on the assumption that women, following the respectable code of behavior, would only either look down demurely or look up to meet the gaze of the men. Under no circumstance would a respectable woman look all around her--that would be considered unseemly! The painting and its placement together are such an interesting commentary on the privilege of the male gaze. It gets even better. During the suffragette movement, when British women were demanding the right to vote and were being imprisoned, a suffragette came in an hit this painting with an axe! Her explanation was that she wanted to destroy something "beautiful." The newspapers went berserk and spoke about it almost in terms of assault. Bruise on the shoulder, the wound...all such phrases seemed to indicate that the violent feminist had attacked the beautiful, passive woman. Even today, despite the repair work, we can see the area where the axe had torn the canvas apart. The fine lines are the marks of history, of male ownership of the female form and the feminist revolt.

Proserpine by Rossetti

Went to Tate Britain today, especially for their Pre-Raphaelite collection. All the magnificent paintings I'd always seen in print and wondered about were there in front of me and the effect was stupendous. The painters and their women; their poems inscribed on the frame...some on my mind made it process where past and present collided. What I like best about their paintings is their narrative quality which I guess is not surprising considering I've devoted the best part of my life to narratives. Look at 'Proserpine' by Rossetti and how he uses the myth of the maiden trapped in the dark underworld for six months of every year of her life and spending that time longing for light. Look at how the painter captures the pensive expression in the model's eyes. Of course, it is Jane Morris, the wife of Rosetti's best friend William Morris who Rossetti was in love with. Maybe it is Rossetti's subjectivity at work here: seeing Jane as Proserpine, trapped in marriage. I love how Dante uses the burst of color in the pomegranate to contrast with the lush darkness that envelops Proserpine on all sides. Yet there is a hint of light...as if spring is almost here and she will be free again. Did I say I loved the Pre-Raphaelites?!!

the sad skin lady

While centuries have gone by with men looking at women and producing "art" or "pornography"...in the case, of classical nudes, it was both at the same time! In a post-feminist daze, I believed that it was finally over. Men could look at women, women could look at men, we could look at ourselves and in the this culture of visual equality, there was no longer any scopophilic domination. And then I found myself watching skin commercials on TV...all those anxious women tugging at their eye lines, their laugh lines. Did we take the gaze back just to turn it on ourselves? If we look in the mirror, do we replicate the sad skin woman?

Conversations

"Conversations"

I thought that we would talk
Like we always do.
Inconsequential chatter,
High-sounding dead-end phrases.
Instead I find myself,
Confronted with an alien language.
The mind assaulted
By a barrage of undecipherable ciphers.
You seem to spin around yourself
A web of ideas like a defensive spider.
And I am scared to come in.
Frightened because I do not comprehend
Your words, your thoughts, your signs.
It breaks my easy complacency;
Shatters the illusion of harmony;
Face to face with a stranger
Who I thought was a friend.

election fever

I know that I have no voting rights in United States. I am not even a permanent resident for crying out loud! But everytime an election comes around, I get involved despite my best attempts to not let that happen. This time I'm rooting for Obama. He's smart, he's articulate and it'll be a first time that this country will not have a white man as a president. If it were any woman other than Hillary, my loyalties would've been split. I think I don't want Hillary as the president because it would be like having Billl Clinton back in office and playing puppet master. But then again maybe it's just because I don't like her face! She never makes eye contact with people she's talking to and she's too gaurded in that terribly WASPy way! All she talks about is her politics without ever rooting it i her personal experiences or convictions. Now, Obama is a different cup of tea! He connects with people, he expresses his ideas with the full force of his personality behind it and he is able to think through complex issues without making intellectual bargains. Some may say that he's a better performer but I guess the Democrats could do with some dynamism after Al Bore oops Gore. This time, I hope the best man wins.

scattered alphabet

eyes swell and subside
laughter flows from the quill
when did living become overkill?
schedule time to kiss, to hold, to breathe
schedule pain too

outside the window
into the green and yellow void
life's scattered alphabet
creates a routine
of expectations and dreams
fading at the seams

aaaah chai, tea, cha, even tea latte...so many names and so many forms but completely essential to the existence of civilization. But for this tea, we would all want to kill the person who drones on in front of us or turn the frenzy on ourselves! Tea allows us the comfortable, slurpy silence. It makes the inanity of social banter bearable, even pleasurable. The bengalis have made tea drinking and conversation almost ritualistic. "Adda" is synonymous with penurious surroundings and the completely disjunctive, highly intellectual exchange of ideas. Where would Alexander Pope's world of intricate faux pas and delicate morals be without the ornate china tea sets to give it a beautiful center? In fact, one can tell that a person has completely given up the desire for any human company when s/he gives up drinking tea!

Introduction to Poetry

"I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means."

-- Billy Collins

holy matrimony!

Indian marriages are insane. Period. There are no ifs and buts about it. There is no joining of souls and soulful gazing into each other's eyes while reading self-composed vows like American sitcom characters do. There is a lot of watery eye contact with the priest's eyes as he chants the mantras while you try your level best to turn your head at strange angles to avoid the "holy" smoke. One doesn't exchange rings and swear to live and die together. Rather, at least in Bengali weddings, the bride's father puts the ring on the groom's finger....and only death shall part the father and son in law! You look around trying to spot a familiar face but you don't see anyone because, well, they are all busy running around, getting everything right for the three hundred people who you really don't know and will probably never meet again in your life. In short, after having fed on all that fluffy western romance, getting married in India is like a hearty kick to your mental backside! You realize that weddings are not romantic, they are not meant to be. They are public events of gargantuan proportions that remind you that your getting married is a social fact. Everybody's involved and interested and there is no escaping it. There is no riding away into the sunset. To a certain extent, the winter smog in Delhi pretty much kills the sunset but largely because those three hundred people you don't know might also want to ride along!