" ..the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make up our lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there is no place like home," but rather that there is no longer any such place as home: except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us in Oz: which is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began.."

- Salman Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz: An Appreciation(BFI,1997).

1.

‘Commoners here by thousands floated
And jostled one another down
Each paddling in his leaky boat
And here they fished for gold; or drowned.’
-Jonathan Swift
2."My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with such abstract, serene satisfaction."
- Barack Obama on the 9/11 terrorists.

1. Obama stuttered through the first of three US Presidential debates last night, but won it anyway.
I am very glad for him even though I supported Hilary throughout the primaries. But then Sarah Palin arrived with her moose brigade from Alaska, and she managed to scare me away from all that independent, maverick libertarian nonsense. Thank you, Mrs. Palin.

2. I am very very nervous about October. Also, a little bit happy because I made a new friend at my office. ( + a small raise! yay!)

3. This past year, I was a little little fish in the massive ocean that is my local Indian Association. This fall, I will graduate into becoming a little big fish.

4. I have become so Behenji these days that it's beyond just sad. At my writing class, I can't seem to think of a single pitch idea that doesn't smell of curry or mention India in some way, shape or form. Also, I write in cliches, but nothing new there.

5. Come November, I will move into an small apartment in a town that hosts two of the most expensive country clubs in this fair country. Three Hurrays for G , me and (-here it comes-)the American mortgage industry!! :- P

+1. As always, I miss you more than anything Cochin.

The light goes down and the sky reddens, pain grows sharp,
light dwindles. Then there is the evening
when jasmine flowers open, the deluded say.

But evening is the great brightening dawn
when crested cocks crow all through the tall city
and evening is the whole day
for those without their lovers.

-Kuruntokai 234, translated by A.K. Ramanuja

I used to read McSweeneys at work but no longer.

Midafteroons (somewhere between lunch and losing my mind), Facebook provides an easy distraction from responding to emails from St. who TYPES LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME. ENOUGH SAID.

Anyway, I like FB because it lets me make small talk with people without having to dial a single digit and because I despise talking on the phone with all my heart. Also, I find out all kind of nifty bits of family trivia from relatives I haven't talked to in years.

Last night for instance, someone told me that my great great grandmother's name was Kuttiamma, and that the 200 year old house she grew up in still stands in a small village outside Alleppey.

It is not that I haven't had time to write here but I have been too busy watching Korean movies, looking for a place to live, thinking about babies and driving to work.

Inspiration is also a problem - parts of me are rocklike and mute while my inner six year old wakes up at 2 in the morning with barely suppressed panic. I can't imagine ever putting my name to another short story, blog post or poem again but I am also convinced there is at least one good long streak of creative writing in me.

Hmmmm? Say What?

that make me feel like a grown up:

Going to work in a suit.
Filling up the trunk of my Honda Civic with groceries on a Sunday afternoon.
Becoming a five year old's tooth fairy.
Choosing apples instead of ice cream.

3 that don't:
Fighting dirty with G.
Envy.
Crying for no reason.

Be one on whom nothing is wasted. (or something to that effect)
- Henry James.

To the conventional eye, Vanessa Paradis is a pretty enough woman- with wild hair in the French fashion, and an emaciated frame. But every time I see her gap toothed smile, a small unkind and insecure part of me jumps back, startled. But I can think of no better example of true physical beauty. Sorry Aishwarya.

As somebody who has been at constant (CONSTANT) war with her body for as long as I can remember, I don't think it is very easy for Paradis to put herself out there, on a public stage suspecting that people could be making fun of you for not conforming to what they think Beautiful should look like. Of course, it helps that Paradis is rail thin and that she is married to Johnny Depp. A modeling contract with Chanel and thriving career in French Bubblegum Pop doesn't hurt either.



I think Paradis has been on my mind because I have been having some very one sided but fat-phobic conversations with a friend over the last 3 or 4 weeks. At the moment, I am an average sized woman and nobody on the street would look twice if I walked around the street eating an icecream cone. But there used to be a time when they would have. So I am not sure how to say that I don't just NOT agree with my friend, but that I am intensely uncomfortable with body prejudice.INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE, in case that wasn't clear the first time around.

The time of the year has something to do with ( it has been sweater and hot chocolate weather lately) but I spent a lot of my Sunday at the bookstore I am secretly in love with. And front and center, on their bestsellers table were 4 books by authors from the Subcontinent. Yes, FOUR out of ten. Aravind Adiga, Preeta Samarason, Jhumpa Lahiri and Indra Sinha.

All decent writers, and thank god - not one of them seemed to mention the smell of adulterated saffron or the swish of a cheap sari or the smell of burnt curry, except maybe for the Samarason woman.This is a good thing because writers should always write about what they know but not just. This is not such a good thing because if you are a wannabe writer, now what are the odds of -?

The book I really want to read is Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger which appears to walk on the seedy side of the Great Indian Dream, much like Sharma's An Obedient Father. The pervert in me totally adored and enjoyed reading that book.