She dislikes mobile phones and keeps one only to satisfy her parents, and now Vivek her fiancee, who lives with her. She keeps her house spotless and immaculate. All furniture is handpicked by her from various craft emporiums, to create her dream home. There is a room at the back of the house she keeps locked, the turquoise color of the door a sharp contrast to the warm hues in the rest of the house. The keys of this door, she lost a few years ago, and since there was nothing important in the room to begin with, she soon forgot about it. Yesterday, Vivek asked her about the door, she suddenly realized she hasn’t opened that room in close to 2 years, almost as long as she knew Vivek.

She decides to get the door opened by a locksmith, and clear the room to make it her Art studio. As the door is opened, a cursory glance reveals some objects that she had forgotten in her busy schedule. A close examination reveals objects collected from three years spent as a nomadic artist travelling in Europe, Turkey, Japan, and Sri Lanka, on various art residencies. A few polaroids are enough to launch a strong bout of nostalgia. The girl in the picture, even though only 3 years younger looks actually 6 years younger, she looks happy and carefree, and is not afraid of being alone. The beret, the paints on fingers, the flowing hair, the arm wrapped around her waist. She wonders who that arm belonged to. A tight affectionate hold, and a look of wonder in her eyes as she see him. Travel was always her first love, but she chose to be in one stable place after she got engaged to Vivek. It was her decision. What would that girl in the polaroid be doing now? Where would she be? In Paris perhaps sipping coffee and biting off rainbow colored macaroons. Those moments seem like bokeh, bright, shiny, yet out of focus. She sets the polaroids back on the shelf, and goes through the rest of the items, each one invoking a particular memory, smell, space, an altogether different past. She spends her entire day there, sifting through and putting the objects back, carefully arranging them exactly in the spot she found them. She looks at the time, and realizes that Vivek would be back any minute, she also remembers that she had scheduled two client meetings, which she has now missed.

As Vivek’s car pulls up in the driveway, she quickly darts back to the kitchen, to prepare some tea, looking back to ensure the turquoise door locked firmly behind her as she left.

Done for a creative writing workshop at School Of Visual Arts, NYC

-says Winnie the Pooh via NYPL

Never running out of conversation, or love. Never running out of somnambulant smiles.

The book is set in post literate American culture and traces the lives of Lenny Abramov and his love interest Eunice Park. Lenny is middle aged, balding and out of shape son of Russian immigrant parents, and is working as the Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator (Grade G) at the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, a firm that specializes in life extension, while Eunice, hails from a Koren immigrant family and is the daughter of an abusive father and an exceedingly submissive Korean mother, she has finished her studies with a major in Assertiveness and Images.

For Lenny it is love at first sight, while Eunice struggles to make herself love him, is constantly repulsed by his looks, often calling him “nerd-face”,  and afraid to look at them together in the mirror. But as the story progresses, she grudgingly, hesitantly starts to value his loyalty. What binds them together however, is their struggle with their own inferiority complexes, and Lenny’s complete devotion to Eunice. The points where Lenny is overcome with unbridled love for Eunice, are the parts that give a deep richness to Gary Shteyngart’s text
“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons —
it was systemic and it was complete.” is by far, the most evocative and accurate description of love I have ever come across.

The story take cues from the current American financial situation and extrapolates it into the future, creating a dark vision of the future generations, their environments and their reactions to it.

Every time the tone shifts from Lenny’s realistic diary entries to Eunice’s teenage, pornography studded, shallow exchanges through her äppärät (a device that is the centre of everyones lives, and live-streams all that is still considered private and sacred, willingly), one cannot help cringing. Perhaps that was the intended reaction as the book, like a pendulum oscillates between the superficial nature of future communications and the disconcerting but touching account of love and loss, which leaves you deeply uncomfortable.

Gary Shteyngart’s dystopian vision of America is indeed disturbing, so much so that one doesn’t know till the very end, and even after that, if they should absolutely love the book or absolutely despise it. His America of the future while teetering on the brink of a colossal meltdown, is inhabited by people who find books ‘smelly’, who want to live forever, who shop at AssLuxury and JuicyPussyline for nippleless bras, communicate through a Global teens account, and are constantly assessed through the street-side credit rating poles.

This vision of America while written to be severe, fails to elicit any sympathy, but causes an unrest that one cannot begin to give words to.

The part that keeps the narrative together however is Lenny’s relationship with Eunice, and his parents, his daily diary entries, and his endearing struggle to love New York. Clearly demonstrated in this line from Lenny’s diary “Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it’s not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.” .

In pieces, throughout the book you are forced to dislike Eunice less, when looking beneath her words, you find a vulnerability that leaves you stunned with its poignant sadness.

It is this poignant sadness that hits you hard, at some points in the book, while leaving other parts acutely emotion-less and desperately satirical. Only after reading the book, does one realize, how aptly it is titled, a perfect mix of the deep melancholy sparkling through the pages and the biting crudeness embedded in the language.

This is a book that consistently smells of grief and the inevitable decay of human society, wafting through the air, as you turn its pages, and is truly a Super Sad True Love Story.

Go Read!

A year of regrets and afternoon naps
new shores and marauder’s maps,

Of heart shaped secrets
and bellowing gaps,

Of biscuits and books
and solitary nooks,

Of petrichor eyes
and sheepish smiles,

A year together, a year alone
Of whistling djinns and vagrant bones.

- Lenny Abramov in a Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary Shteyngart
swoon

Never there,
These helpless appeals
Humming;

Never there,

When I’m lost
Not to be found
You will sing-

Never there,
And then resume.

Swiftly,
In a blink.

I can see now fading, in an old red telephone booth.

…

A teenager rebelling against my own old self.

I can see now returning my rulebooks of wefts.

…

Of foundations that seemed so deep rooted,

now unnecessary, stand refuted.

…

Of the joys and pits and widths and depths

shrunk and hollow and narrow and bereft.

…

Of new truths and new lights

Of new sights with big, bright, brown eyes.

sitting alone, in recovery, when the mind that runs a minute a mile

slows down, to chew on the things that really matter.

…

is flummoxed by the rich creamy feeling of feeling

in this narrow laned and always chained city

in this grey stoned and very marooned city

…

Even if for a few hours before the world falls down,

even if it is by force of recovery

by chance

by accident

…

The feeling of feeling that socks you in the gut

with its force and vastness,

with its blur and sharpness.

…

The love that is always around, if not in sight

then just around the corner,

if not in flight,

then just around

the feeling of feeling.

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

sunkissed songs, waft in the spaces of my mind;

in between perfumed conversations, the numbers on the clock,

spell out a magic hour;

…

The hour of songs that, located in memory-space

from decades ago, have since begun to

shimmer with repeated invoking.

…

The magic hour of half stringed conversations,

that gradually piece together to form,

a sunlit journey worth writing for.

knots that were tied hurriedly to keep two disparate ends together,

with the faith that, in knotting twice, three times, over again will

fortify –

invisible threads that tie our hearts,

a million tiny strings tied end to end,

to form the webbing of time,

all coming undone, little by little;

The unfastening of hearts is such.

two this year,

Another one, spread itself under my feet, uninvited,

a bit too suddenly, too swift to be seen in clarity,

without a whiff of white and black and most importantly grey.

Grey, that is formed of a medley of notes,

some muddy, some inaudible, some pastel, of now

Some others, more fluorescent and vivid.

brilliant luminous colors that peek from

familiar folds of old singing diaries.

Songs of a dream and other quaint places.

...

and keeping with our custom,

there are bits of paper

in this pocket,

Useless,

I know,

but I love them nonetheless.

Dont know why,

But then, that’s how one loves right?

without much reason.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live
it will be in your arms without leaving mine
]]> http://sanarao.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/if-you-forget-me-by-pablo-neruda-translated-by-donald-s-walsh/feed/ 1 sanarao http://sanarao.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/declutter/ http://sanarao.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/declutter/#comments Sun, 27 Feb 2011 05:54:50 +0000 sanarao http://sanarao.wordpress.com/?p=733 ]]> Lets declutter our lives.

Of people, Of places,

Of milestones, and lost races.

…

Of uneventful childhoods, of bookcases,

of ruthless lovers, and their romantic phases.

…

Lets declutter our lives.

Of a past that no one faces,

and of happier futures that the whole world chases.

between the moments of wishing and getting, many a winds whirl by.

Not the ones that break your back, or the ones that howl.

Winds that pick you up and drop you in a different wish.

These things will happen, you say,

I hear you. I agree.

with them at the centre. Centre of all the well and beyond,

much beyond the well as well;

All the bricks all the cement, streets, windows and trains

all lead there.

…

Garnering, acquiring, collecting, swallowing

everything and everyone, is for them. is them.

Nothing leaves, is given, offered, donated, not for anyone.

Its all in there somewhere. Stashed Greed.

जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

जिस दिन मेरी चेतना जगी मैंने देखा
मैं खड़ा हुआ हूँ इस दुनिया के मेले में,
हर एक यहाँ पर एक भुलाने में भूला
हर एक लगा है अपनी अपनी देन-लेन में
कुछ देर रहा हक्का-बक्का, भौचक्का-सा,
आ गया कहाँ, क्या करूँ यहाँ, जाऊँ किस जाहा?
फिर एक तरफ से आया ही तो धक्का-सा
मैंने भी बहना शुरू किया उस रेले में,
क्या बाहर की ठेला-पेली ही कुछ कम थी,
जो भीतर भी भावों का ऊहापोह मचा,
जो किया, उसी को करने की मजबूरी थी,
जो कहा, वही मन के अंदर से उबल चला,
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मेला जितना भड़कीला रंग-रंगीला था,
मानस के अन्दर उतनी ही कमज़ोरी थी,
जितना ज़्यादा संचित करने की ख़्वाहिश थी,
उतनी ही छोटी अपने कर की झोरी थी,
जितनी ही बिरमे रहने की थी अभिलाषा,
उतना ही रेले तेज ढकेले जाते थे,
क्रय-विक्रय तो ठण्ढे दिल से हो सकता है,
यह तो भागा-भागी की छीना-छोरी थी;
अब मुझसे पूछा जाता है क्या बतलाऊँ
क्या मान अकिंचन बिखराता पथ पर आया,
वह कौन रतन अनमोल मिला ऐसा मुझको,
जिस पर अपना मन प्राण निछावर कर आया,
यह थी तकदीरी बात मुझे गुण दोष न दो
जिसको समझा था सोना, वह मिट्टी निकली,
जिसको समझा था आँसू, वह मोती निकला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मैं कितना ही भूलूँ, भटकूँ या भरमाऊँ,
है एक कहीं मंज़िल जो मुझे बुलाती है,
कितने ही मेरे पाँव पड़े ऊँचे-नीचे,
प्रतिपल वह मेरे पास चली ही आती है,
मुझ पर विधि का आभार बहुत-सी बातों का।
पर मैं कृतज्ञ उसका इस पर सबसे ज़्यादा -
नभ ओले बरसाए, धरती शोले उगले,
अनवरत समय की चक्की चलती जाती है,
मैं जहाँ खड़ा था कल उस थल पर आज नहीं,
कल इसी जगह पर पाना मुझको मुश्किल है,
ले मापदंड जिसको परिवर्तित कर देतीं
केवल छूकर ही देश-काल की सीमाएँ
जग दे मुझपर फैसला उसे जैसा भाए
लेकिन मैं तो बेरोक सफ़र में जीवन के
इस एक और पहलू से होकर निकल चला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

via here