Kissing the winter sun

lovers of solitude

"A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is: when I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward; amid its shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man – or this woman – may use a typewriter, profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I have done for 30 years. As he writes, he can drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time he may rise from his table to look out through the window at the children playing in the street, and, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or he can gaze out at a black wall. He can write poems, plays, or novels, as I do. All these differences come after the crucial task of sitting down at the table and patiently turning inwards. To write is to turn this inward gaze into words, to study the world into which that person passes when he retires into himself, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. As I sit at my table, for days, months, years, slowly adding new words to the empty page, I feel as if I am creating a new world, as if I am bringing into being that other person inside me, in the same way someone might build a bridge or a dome, stone by stone. The stones we writers use are words. As we hold them in our hands, sensing the ways in which each of them is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from afar, sometimes almost caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around, year in and year out, patiently and hopefully, we create new worlds."

Orhan Pamuk,
Writer, Nobel Laureate















"Only in intimate communion with solitude may man find himself.
Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it."

Luis Barragan
Mexican Architect, Pritzker Prize Laureate

a room of one's own

Virginia Woolf's extended essay, a must read, examining if women are capable of producing fiction, rather anything creative.

Considered as the first major work in feminist criticism.

The title comes from Woolf's conception that, 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'.


click on the link below for the complete work:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/

pickling life!

My father-in-law is a vast reader and an excellent writer. During his verbal diarrhoea (that’s is how he calls his obsession to communicate), he sends us beautiful e-mails, vividly narrating his everyday events and memories of childhood and youth. It must have been Anne Frank who inspired: for me, it was writing diaries right from childhood, penning down the everyday events just before going to bed.

School-time diaries were quite boring, quoting the names of lessons, details of mark sheets, fights with friends, brother and parents and even what was for dinner, lunch and break-fast. I must have been crazy writing such stuff, but it gave me a sense of satisfaction doing it then. When I got to college, I found the diaries’ pages not enough to describe all the events. During the Pre-Degree years, I remember the most immature me had 3 diaries: one, to record the everyday events, one which I called as the emotional diary, to write on the most emotional days when the normal diary would run out of space; and thirdly the secret diary to pen down my butterfly thoughts on infatuations, which I sealed with masking tape every time after writing! That was an extra precaution, even though I believed that no one at home had the interest or patience to go through that madness.

I really can’t stop smiling, going back home to see them covered in dust lining a wooden cupboard without lock and key! I must admit I am proud to have them. The basic idea was that I did not want to let go a single day in life without it leaving a memory, so if I wanted to go back to any day in my life, it was possible! And what if I died tomorrow? How would those people ever come to know of my unspoken feelings to them? Come on, you can’t always be nice to your people and you can’t keep telling them how much you love them! So I had given the rights of my diaries to an elder cousin, to go through them after the unfortunate event of my death and let people know of what I had to tell them. To my big surprise, he also took it in the same seriousness! The diaries also served as the everyday family encyclopedia. If mom asks “when did Valyamma visit us last” or “when was it that we made fish moilee for dinner”, I could quickly go through my treasure chest and proudly give her the date.

But when I grew up and found some ears worthy enough to push down the everyday thoughts in to, I slowly withdrew from the habit, since writing them all over seemed like repetition. Laziness is another reason. These days it is occasional writing, only when there are fights, dilemmas or emotional downpour; it helps to cool mind down and take a better decision. Sometimes I miss the old habit, finding that the absence of it has made life less under control.

On extremely boring days like this, nothing is more refreshing than to grab an old diary and become younger instantly. It is immense fun reading them as a grown-up now, to smile at the innocent little girl I once have been. Quoting my father-in-law again: “thinking of old times makes us humbler; a humble heart has better receptivity and it emanates positive ideas”.

being thirty-something

Being thirty seemed like a distant mountain just a few days back. Now I'm atop. As someone once said, "there is still no cure for the common birthday"! After the hangover of gifts and goodies, as I sit alone and rub my eyes to think of those 30 years spent on this planet, I suddenly find it quite alarming. The last age that I remember being was probably 21. What happened to all those 9 years after that? I was surely not hibernating. Maybe it was the down pour of too many key events that happened during then, which makes me feel so.

Current world average lifespan of humans is considered to be 70. So I am nearing middle age. And what did I do to the world? I say, I was busy learning things. I am still learning things. Well, if your whole life is a learning process, when's the time to practice what you learnt?

Van Gogh died aged 37. Kafka died at 41. Michael Jackson's best years were 27-30. Now, does that mean that the most productive years of my life are over? The musicians and writers and film makers that contributed best to my generation are all dying off these days. Is the world graying beside me?

Not really! When I looked on further, I could see that there's hope. Le Corbusier and Richard Neutra died at 78. Villa Savoye was done when Corbusier was 42. Zaha Hadid established her practice when she was 30, and still it took her some decades to get her designs executed. Tadao Ando's professional life also flourished after his thirties. Barragan built his beautiful house at 46. And most interestingly, Geoffrey Bawa turned to architecture only at the age of 38. Phew! Who's in a hurry?

But there are other issues. The health insurance is expensive after you turn 30. Now does that imply that one should be expecting health issues after 30? They scare me saying the female reproductive system goes on a toss after 35. Ehem! I must quickly do something about it!

That apart, as I sit here with silver strands in my hair (that I still see as the effect of early wisdom), and getting used to the newer generation calling me "aunt!", I still have a lot of youth in my mind. I will always have it, as far as I share my life with this man, who'd always be one year older than I am!

"These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.” Virginia Woolf

what i wanted to say to Kamala

My dear, dear Kamala,

Some day I should have told you this; but you are gone now.

It happens, with close ones in family or legends in the society; we forget to let them know of their importance in our lives. I don't know in which category should I include you in: you are older than my mother, but strangely, I find you as a friend. Someone who thinks very much like me.

Every year in the rat race that I am in, I stop and read your books. You are the only writer who could make me read again and again. I don't think it has much to do with your language or intelligence or extra ordinary story threads or like many make fun of, the sexual remarks in your stories. I even hate to discuss about it. It is your frankness that takes me on a ride with you. The frank narration that makes the reader feel, "it could have been my story!" or "I have known this feeling!" Your writing always made me humbler, munch on memories and feel more beautiful, for reasons only you know! I am extremely grateful for the strength that you add to my existence, making me feel that you know me.

You are the true woman, the bold woman, the woman of greatest substance. You successfully expressed the complex feminine emotions; never mind how the simple men take it.