Marker

I think I ended up getting a little too excited about this blog. I used up all my credits in one fell swoop. And then, well, being silent on here just got way too comfortable.

But hey, I’m paying to exist on here, so I might as well use it for anything and everything.

I’ve spent the last month and a half (?) or so working on the first drafts of a bunch of short stories that are coming out quite nicely, I think.

Writing at a stretch, creatively, can be very exhausting. There are times when you feel your brain give way, and the spoon that you’ve been extending into your skull all this while starts scraping gratingly against bone. It’s not really writer’s block — I haven’t really experienced that yet. It’s just a general sense of exhaustion. I don’t quite know how to describe it. Have you heard the way someone scrapes the last remnants of curd, or a curry from a metal plate with a metal spoon? Krrrr Krrrr Krrrr. Over and over again. Yeah. That dry, exhausted feeling of something ending. Loudly.

Luckily, reading has been there for me whenever this happens. I was working through a Bilingual Edition of Mallarmé, and a neat little Bilingual Introduction to German Poetry for a while. Going through the translation, briefly trying to find the nuances of every word as best I could was a lot of fun. I really must get back to that.

If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai has been a fantastic read! I’m so so, surprised to find such good writing coming out from India at this level, outside of the “regional languages”. Perur is amazing. Suspect he is that amazing because of his strong ties to “regional” writing. What an amazing writer, and what a nice perspective on the world! Planning to move from this book to his translation of Ghachar Ghochar. Found him on sturdy recommendation from a friend.

Henri Bergson has been a beautiful, beautiful find. One more frenchman in my life! Have always read artists who talk ravingly about him, but am finally getting around to reading him only now. I’m so glad I waited until this phase of my life to finally breathe him in. I love how methodically he works, the beautiful way he floats above an idea in soft little concentric circles, and then lands lightly on it like a feather. Its very sensitive, and very very pretty. Sometimes, I see the poet-mathematician in him at work in the background. All my experiences of creativity are taken to new heights with him! Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been brain-annihilatingly amazing. Reading Bergson in conjunction with Freire has been great! So much to talk about there, will probably do a separate post. Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography has been terrifying but necessary. I can barely make it past the pages. The structuring of the writing is a bullet in the head. In awe.

As always, I’m always amazed, over and over again, by how beneficial it is to sit and write casually for this space. I’m pretty happy with all I’ve managed to do in the time that I’ve been away, and for sure, I’m lucky to be doing it.

Till next time!