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May 22nd, 2012: Just posted the first few pages of a new children’s novel, Sita & the Secret Sari. It’s both very real (growing up Indian in the Midwest when no one knew what Indian was) and very imaginative ( exploring the imaginative landscape of Indian childhood). Please check it out on the left!

May 14th, 2012: May has been nothing less than enchanting in St. Louis. The days overflow with glittering cool green-and-gold light; and I also was lucky enough to experience dozens of varieties of dance at the 13th Annual St. Louis Dance Festival that Dances of India sponsors. In that regard, I thought I’d highlight two poems, on dance and on spring, which follow below. And just to remind you all that if you’re as tired of all the very dark stuff out there as I am, do have a look at an excerpt of my novel, The Palace of the Seven Stories. It doesn’t shy away from the realities of this world, but it does look at them with a whole lot of wonder. And speaking of wonder, I just put up a poem entitled Prayer for the Most Blessed Voyage of All-–it reminds us to never forget wonder in the craziness of daily existence…

The Equation

E=mc2 “If your body were turned into energy it would be 1000 times as powerful as a nuclear bomb,”—from The Universe, on the History Channel.

i don’t want
to forget–

acrobatic leap
of life
into breathless
arabesques;

immaculate weight
of a body
falling

trusting—

hands now

held out—

–

i don’t want
to forget–

supercells charged
with operatic velocity

black hol
iness

accelerating grace

silent
breath

ing—

–

in a sleight
of light

mass masters

energy

masters mass.

lungs hungry

no longer.

i will

forget.

–

the genius
in our genes—

to equate the longing
of light

with the mad dreams
of mass.

This piece was composed the day after a performance of Remember Me, a collaboration between the David Parsons Dance Company and New York’s East Village Opera Theatre.

The Dance of Spring

….really it’s the fault of the raindrops

who simply can’t stop
swaying,
kissing the mist

hovering in mid-silvery air

drop-dead glistening drops
suddenly snapping in sharp splashes

upon concrete. Really it’s the raindrops’ fault,
who simply can’t stop

dancing.

Swish here. Splash there.

Yeah.

And then the miniature masterpieces
of masterful oaks join in—
smooth new leaves with a spring in their step
making their first appearance on stage

swing their stuff ( the oaks,
who have decked themselves in green
for decades of blustery spring seasons,
are down with this).

Whirling in wind …whoosh….

baby leaves try to seize the breeze–
some of them know to stay rooted,
but some can’t help but leap

into the huff-and-puff of hungry gusts

leaving inhibitions behind,

inhabiting a windy new wild world

where they give completely
of their greenness—

Can you feel it?

Shake it baby.

But leaves don’t live in the wild alone.

Blossoms fall in. Petals step out–
(even late bloomers,
elegantly fragrant)
who pas-de-deux
with wild violets
frou-frou daffodils,

onion grass.

The honeysuckle’s sachets of sashaying scents

shimmy down

to dandy dandelions and other dancing weeds
doing their seedy moves
among sassy grasses, tired
of being trampled upon.

Dance is universal.

Even twigs wiggle.

And the moss lets everyone know
who’s boss.

Insects awake to this luscious crescendo
of melody, rhythm, sweet nectar of life–

bees buzz jazzily. Ooh, honey.

Spiders spin quietly
supple webs strong as steel,

while caterpillars do the “Pillar”—
glacial line dances through forests of grass.

Later, butterflies flutter,
lustrous.

Ants dance as well
(although no one watches)—

smug little bugs
who need no one’s attention.

Inchworms worm their way through the insect/plant divide
by slinking in between a chorus line
of helicopter seed pods’ aerodynamic dynamism,

when birds swoop in, able to soar and sink into the singing sky
sans any stage props—
lucky ducks.

Then, with the whole world
dancing in harmony

guess what? The moon
gets jealous, wants to shine—

‘My light’s light on its feet’ it swears.

‘Wait your turn,’ say the stars, as they strut
their light-hearted stuff.

‘Oh, please,’ say the winds to the stars,
leaping in again
not caring if its their turn or not,
‘you think your light’s fast?
We’re lighter than air.’

The moon replies: “You’re full of hot air!”
as it beams its gleaming rays upon the earth,
swooning to its own lunar tune.

In a dancing dazzling moment
a celestial spotlight sets the stage

alight—

nervous, newly-created shadows cast by newly-born leaves humbly

bow.

And Spring, drunk on the divine wine of lit-up light-moving wind,

intoxicatingly,

begins.

March 27th, 2012: Hello there! I thought I’d start off spring 2012 with some prose/poetry pieces of mine from a collection entitled The Grace of Small Ghosts. They are almost all meditations on faith. Here is one, entitled Sidewinder:

I was sleep
walking through the desert,
one thirsty winterworn day,
chasing a man who betrayed me,
he stole my self away.

The dunes were sick with sleeping,
craven ground only craving the night-
times when they could die dreaming,
the moments when life felt right.

I had to sidle through the desert;
I can’t walk facing ahead.
I’d have to face everything in front of me,
I’m scared of what’s in my head.

Only at night, no longer than a night,
does my way shine sweet like a star.
The daylight binds me strictly so tight
blinds me I run so far

away from this world, from this silicon whirl.
I race from its sight, I need the new night–

I’ll catch the man who betrayed me,
who peeled my soul away.
No sir he won’t evade me,
he won’t side-step and slide out of my way.

I kept sidling through the desert, side
winding my way through the world,
slinking through dunes as swiftly as I could,
as the wilted days unfurled

when all of a sudden my heart skipped a beat,
I tripped and stumbled right over my feet.

Something shiny was sticking
cleanly out of the sand.
I picked it up gently
and found gleaming in my hand

a tiny hourglass
lying asleep on its side.
I could not stand it up
no matter how much I tried

straightening and balancing the clear crystal glass.
Time licked its lips,

and took a deep breath.
It had been running as well, far too fast.

I shook that hourglass
to watch sand drift down.
I wanted to see
time hasten along.

I soon discovered
what I had known all along–
you can wish your day to flow swiftly away
but time cannot, and will not, agree to be swayed.

But I must have wound some secret spring,
as I soon started to hear, the hourglass sing.

I listened to strains of music
strange syllables of song
until to my utter surprise
I started to sing right along.

I hardly knew any of the words however,
I could not understand anything that was said,
but that didn’t much matter, my heart’s been broken
I could well picture the meanings in my head.

I heard songs of cars, and songs in bars,
and songs of great free dreams,
lonely highways, and of coping with life,
when everything is as bad as it seems.

I listened to the music until my heart swelled,
I was so deadly tired I had to sit down for a spell.

It was then that I heard, out there in the sand,
soft dancing footsteps, imprinting the land

with an unearthly joy, a dry desolate purity.
A god must be dancing, in defiance and liberty.

Sir you must think I am hallucinating
I know the world knows me as insane.
Unfortunately sir my throat is so parched,
I can only lip-sink my illusory pain.

Stories listen to themselves in the desert,
so many stories they swallow you up.
A man’s got absolutely no one to talk to
he’s gotta drink from his own silicon cup.

So he slinks and slides away from the world
slips underneath the glass metal whirl
creating for himself his own caravan,
so he can run after him self as fast as he can.

The little hourglass sung its music,
it set my soul alight
until the sun stretched its rays
started to sink,
and the dunes slid deep into night

night slid straight into day.

I couldn’t peel myself away
from my self like I so desperately wanted.
But I need my illusion
my blessed delusion–

I’d rather be haunted
by the one who locked his soul away,
and carelessly lost the key.
Look at him sir–
don’t look at me–
He’s the one who’s too cowardly to flee.

The night has groaned
my sight has gone.
The truth has sighed,
I wake from the night–

I have to run after that thief,
fast forward and chase him today.
I’ll stop sidling around and look straight ahead
dead ahead he won’t get away.

But before I go I have to lighten my load.
My head’s hurting already it’s soon gonna explode.

I’ll bury the hourglass back into the sand.
And stamp on it fast, as hard as I can.

I’ll catch the man who betrayed me,
who peeled my soul away.
No sir he won’t evade me.
He won’t side-step and jump out of my way.

The other pieces from Grace are The Physical, The Hermitage, Radha, and The Last Romantic. Radha is set in India, and The Last Romantic is set in Japan. I have also posted a variety of poetry, along with excerpts from my first novel, second novel, children’s novel, and new novel on Japan. Additionally, there is an excerpt from a short memoir I’m working on, entitled My Sari Missouri, about growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, at a time when hardly any Indians were around here. It’s about what it means to be American today, in a richly diverse, intricately and incredibly complex country. The introduction follows below, and the first chapter is posted on the left.

There is also a short prose-piece entitled Humanity/Humility on 100% genuine experiences I’ve had with customers in Barnes & Noble, the bookstore where I work. I’ve worked in lots of bookstores on-and-off over the past several years, and there’s no question that people are ruder now. There is also a piece on the closing of Borders, the bookstore where I worked for a while (and where I seriously started writing), which sadly folded in 2011. It is entitled On the Passing of Borders (and the Physical Book).

As always, I’d love to hear any comments you have!

Introduction

“I want to thank you,” the middle-aged white American woman told me, in the Francis Scheidegger Recycling Depository in Kirkwood, Missouri—a suburb of St. Louis, filled with graceful old homes, and nearly all white except for a tucked-away pocket of blacks—“for choosing to live in our country.”

It was just a day or two after 9/11. I’d never seen this woman before, who approached me as I was dumping a bag of magazines in the magazine-recycling trailer. Not knowing quite what to say, I blurted, “Oh, actually I didn’t choose to live in this country. I was born here.”

She seemed a bit bemused. Not many Indians resided in St. Louis in 2001, after all—certainly, many more than when I grew up here, in the 1970’s, but still, a relatively small population, hidden away in doctor’s offices and university engineering classes. And very few Indians had actually been born here.

“Well then,” she said, “Thank your family for choosing to live here.”

“Sure,” I said, smiling. “And thanks.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I was thanking her for. She meant well, certainly. But if it weren’t for the color of my skin—a milky-chai—she would never have assumed me to be foreign.

But then, I wasn’t foreign, really. I was born right here in the heartland. St. Louis, Missouri. Home of the Gateway Arch, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Or, as a friend of mine, Tom, a local librarian, calls it, “Flyover country.” Because no one really visits St. Louis, they visit the airport while in between destinations. Or, so it seems.

But I said, “Thanks” anyway.

Because Americans are always thanking one another, for everything.

**

I still meet people in St. Louis, the quietly elegant city upon the banks of the quietly mighty Mississippi, who are shocked to hear I was born here. In 1968, at that.

After all, I’m not part of the recent IT wave of Indian immigrants. Not only do I not work in IT, I never even had my own computer until five years ago, when my grandma, 85 years old at the time, bought me one.

I’m a writer. It’s a very odd occupation for a professional South Indian family, especially as– in the grand tradition of several of history’s most imaginative writers– my work (novels, poetry, lyrical short fiction) has been turned down for years. And not just by the publishing industry in the US. In England and India as well.

Twelve years of rejection. From all over the globe.

Damn. I must be good.

And after all that time, I continue to write.

That’s very American.

**

I envisioned this little book as a primer of sorts, for getting to know someone who’s as American as they are Indian, and along the way, explore the nature of what it means to be American today.

I see each chapter in this book as a “pleat” in the sari of my identity—which, I suppose, is really an American identity. For those of you who are not familiar with saris, they are lengths of cloth, about six yards long, which adorn a woman’s body with an extraordinary, lissome, grace. They are made of silk, cotton, and a variety of synthetic materials. The colors and patterns of saris are literally infinite, as is the breadth, lyricism, and depth of the collective Indian imagination.

Saris are one-size-fit-all. The trick is in how you pleat the sari. You can make small pleats, or large pleats, and tuck them neatly—very neatly and smoothly, or the older Indian ladies will take note!—at your waist. A few pleats leads to a longer pallu (the flowing segment of the sari that drapes over the left shoulder). More pleats lead to a shorter pallu. The pleats support the whole piece—although of course nowadays most women use the help of safety pins to keep them in place.

So many pleats necessary for a neatly-worn sari. So many chapters necessary for a richly- cherished life.

Let’s begin…