Category: Uncategorized
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RIC Journal, and a little update
Bit of an update here: Philippe Charlier and I have just launched an English-Hindi bimonthly journal : RIC Journal. We hope to reflect a more spiritual aesthetics than the critical (although, one doesn’t necessarily exclude the other). Do read the first issue, and kindly spread the word. I also have a short piece in the…
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Plans
I have never had much ambition. I have no desire to be anything. The only wish I have is to be able to write at least one book. Then? Then, open a little grocery shop* in a forgotten corner of the city I have always hated. I imagine, years later: nothing. *I have considered…
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Synchronicity #2
The stunning Indian actor Smita Patil died on 13th December, 1986, after developing septicemia during childbirth. A few months later, my mother – pregnant at the time – had a dream: she was almost at the end of the pregnancy when she suddenly had wings and was flying into an unknown but exquisite land. She…
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Synchronicity #1
Last year in Delhi, sometime in April, my mother came to me looking very anxious and said that since the night before a dog had been crying outside our window. A bad omen, it means death. She said she was very worried that the dog was outside our window. I was somewhat surprised at her…
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In the Absence of Time
Some days the gods feel like philosophers, they grow on the city and its surroundings a strong wind. So, coming from the abandoned cemetery on the outskirts of this venerable city, desert sand mixed with fine dust of bleached bones, it happens to me sometimes that I have the sensation of breathing my ancestors, to…
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Hiroshima Mon Amour
iAnd He says: “I will remember you as the symbol of love’s forgetfulness.” The ephemeral love, the evanescent love, the smoke love : it happens everywhere. Years ago, sitting in a café with my then boyfriend, I remember him saying to me, suddenly, and presciently: you will forget all this, no? And yet, the ephemera…
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On the writing days
The most torturous thing with writing is that most days it feels like you’re doing nothing. But then I go back to the days I was doing something, and astonishingly : the feeling was the same. At the end of each day, I’d feel almost as worthless as I do right now. Perhaps, more. But…
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Haute Couture
There’s a certain fascination I have for couture shows – on days I can’t find anything to do, of which there are many, I will watch show after show, I now even have favourites. In them, I think, one can see both the exquisite beauty and the unimaginable cruelty this world is capable of.…
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On India
During my one trip to Europe, I was constantly surprised at how many people assumed I was from London, Spain, and Latin America – but no one ever thought I was from India. I usually corrected them, but it was almost always followed by questions I was not willing to answer. I have zero sense…
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Dear Nazim
Yesterday, an aunt asked me about my friends, and the conversation inevitably turned to marriage. I told her I couldn’t imagine how anyone could live with another person without a profound love. And she suddenly smiled, like some older people do when they think they know better, and told me that love is not like…
