Harvesting Two Wheat...s

So, since I so obviously don't even have time to do everything on my to-do list, I am going to kill two birds with one stone. My guide to India post and my "Why India is better" post will now be magically condensed into one mega-post! Here you are...

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Upon traveling to India, I have discovered many things. First and foremost, India is simply better than the United States. I must admit, I didn't really ever understand what was so great about India, why everyone wanted to go there, etc. I think this is the first trip of mine where I've realized that, more than anything, it's the people there that make it what it is. How is it possible that the same people who just yelled at 3 different taxi drivers about their incapabilities can, two minutes later, show some of the most hospitable behavior that has ever been exhibited across the world? And this, this is what really makes India what it is. The hospitality of the people there. So, you want to survive in India long enough to experience this hospitality I speak of? Just follow these rules.

1. Crossing the Street
This is probably where you are most likely to get killed. Make sure when you are crossing the street that you do not stop moving, no matter the circumstances. Even if there is an auto-rickshaw (auto) approaching you at high speed, they will (most likely) turn away at the last section, so keep moving. Otherwise, you are sure to get run over by a motorbike/car/auto/cow.

2. Honking
If you are planning to drive in India--I don't recommend it--it is important to know the rules of honking. Here are situations in which you can honk:

• Someone cuts you off
• Someone walks directly in front of you
• There is a cow in the middle of the road
• The person in front of you is not moving
• The person in front of you did not move for at least .0005 milliseconds
• There is a red light
• You see somebody you know
• You see a store you wish to stop at, but can't
• You feel like it

Remember these rules, and you will not be immediately identified as a tourist, unless you are white, in which case you will be identified within seconds and surrounded by a mob of prospective taxi drivers or people trying to sell you things, pretending you can speak a variety of Indian languages.

3. Rules of Eating
There are very specific rules to eating in people's homes in India. If you are visiting somebody, you must, and I mean must, stay for at least one meal in their home. They will cook an elaborate meal for you, and then say that they were just making it anyways. You must at least try every dish that is prepared, unless you are allergic, in which case they will shake their head sadly at you in a very Indian way. If you are willing to try eating with your hands, then always use your right hand. Never ever touch food with your left hand. When you are finished eating, they will always try to offer you more food, and you must accept more until they cease to bring out more dishes, in which case you are in the clear. You must then sit with them and drink coffee and chat until it has turned an unearthly hour, at which point they will offer their home for you to sleep in. Unless the person is a relative, you must refuse, and call a taxi to their home to take you back to wherever you happen to be staying.

4. Dress Code
You may have seen in Bollywood movies the wonder of scantily clad women being sniffed by Sharukh Khan. If you have not, I strongly recommend seeing at least one Bollywood movie before traveling. However, nobody in India actually dresses like this. Under no circumstances should you bare any part of your body other than your face, arms, and occasionally the bottom half of your leg. NEVER attempt to leave the house in a spaghetti strap tanktop, or low cut top. Modesty is extremely valued in India, and although nobody will say anything, they will all be calling you names behind your back.

5. Leaving
I can almost guarantee that you will not want to leave at the end of your trip. This is a common feeling, and I can also almost guarantee that when you get home, you will be exhausted, and relieved to see your own home again. But, the trip will leave you with extremely fond memories of India, and you will gain a new sense of thankfulness, loyalty, and gratitude towards the people you met there.

To Do List

Posts to write for blog:

• Why India is better than the US
• Narvel's guide to India
• My problems with college applications

General things to do:

• Record singing for application to Utsav (by July 15th)
• Record singing for application to Calif. TV show (by unknown date)
• Write at least three college essays
• Play some tennis before being required to coach
• See Public Enemies, even if my dad says it wasn't amazing
• Organize Holi party

Things for others to do:

• Comment on the last post (that's right, do it now)
• For THE FAIL - practice some songs so when I get back we can do them
• Update your own blogs
  

A dream is a wish your heart makes....

So remember that poem I wrote about animal rights or whatever a while ago? Remember how I was asked to write it for a website? Yeah, so I was asked to write another poem for this website. The prompt was "Dreams". Could you please be a little more vague? Anyways, I'm definitely learning something from this experience, which is that it is really difficult to write from prompts. Especially broad prompts. Anyways, since the topic was dreams, I decided to play around with some surrealism in my poem, since I've never really tried that before. Here is the result:

Dreams are for the dreamers
It is possible that in a day
Or in a week
There will be a dreamer in me

The cityscape is melting
Into a round puddle of light
That reflects off its surface
The horizons of three worlds

It is possible
That in a day
Or in a year or a few years
There will be a dreamer in you

Diamond rise, diamond fall
In a kingdom where diamonds rule
Queens of hearts are meaningless
They sit in the corners of courts
With scepters crafted of fool’s gold

It is possible that in a day
Or in a hour
Or in this very moment
There will be a dreamer in me

I'm not sure how much I liked this poem, but my mother seemed to like it a lot. I think the parts I like are the repetitive "chorus", if you will, and the verse about diamonds/cards. Let me know what you think...

Potential?

Okay fine. So I wrote a song. I wasn't going to post it, but now I will, because I have nothing else to post, and I'm a total comment whore. So kill me. Anyways, hopefully this song will evolve into having a tune as well as lyrics, but right now it only has lyrics. Like every other song I've ever written. Woohoo. So, I'm hoping that once this has a tune, the FAIL can use it, because we really need an original song. Without further ado...

She’s walking in front of me
She’s wearing a scarf
A red, red scarf in the sun

It’s shimmering now
Shimmering and reflecting the light
Of my flashlight
My flashlight shines in the sun

They die now
They’re dying and rotting and sweating
Sweating and swelling in the sun

This is what the world is for
Shimmering and walking
And swelling and smelling
This is the world now, in the sun

She’s slipping away from me
She’s wearing a scarf
A red, red scarf in the sun

It’s vanishing now
Shimmering and vanishing
In the light of the sun

They’re falling now
Falling on their arms and legs
Breaking and falling
Falling in the sun

This is what the world is for
Shimmering and vanishing
And breaking and falling
This is the world now, in the sun

She’s running away from me
She’s wearing a scarf
A red, red scarf in the sun

It’s floating now
Floating and sweeping away
The grins of her enemies
Her enemies die now, in the sun
In the sun, her enemies die
Sweating and swelling and dying
All in the sun

This is what the world is for
This is what the world is for
Running and floating
Sweating and swelling
Falling and dying
All in the sun


Yeah, so don't ask me what this song means. I don't know. It just exists. Anyways, I also realized that the picture I put as my profile pic on this blog looks really warped here, even though it doesn't anywhere else. I don't know what's going on there. Alright, I'm peacing out now. Bye.

Mediocrity

I have an unending admiration for poets who can avoid cliches at all costs. I think the problem with me is that I have only a few topics to write about, never having suffered much in life. But here is an example of a poet who has taken a topic that is so cliche and that every poet has written about at least once, and has incorporated it into her poem in a completely original and profound way. In her poem, "Wanting to Die", Anne Sexton describes suicide, a completely overused topic, in a way that really made me think about it. She says:

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

I'm going to take a risk here and assume that all of you who read this blog either already know this about me, or don't care, but as someone who has in the past struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts, I can relate to Anne Sexton so much here. She described beautifully the exact struggle that people who are contemplating suicide go through. It's never about why, it's about how, where, when. But I could never have described this feeling in such an achingly simple way that causes the reader to have a brief glimpse into Sexton's manic-depressive mind. In case you don't know, she did commit suicide a few years later. So obviously it does help that these were actually her thoughts.

But here is another example on the same topic. Sylvia Plath (who incidentally also committed suicide, soon after writing the following poem) wrote a poem called Lady Lazarus. There isn't a particular line that strikes me, it's more the whole poem. You can read it here:
http://www.palace.net/~llama/poetry/ladylaz

It may help to know when reading this poem that she wrote this before her third (successful) attempt at suicide, so that is what she is referring to with the numbers in the poem.

Anyways, I love the way that she uses rythm (sp?) in this poem to lull the reader into a kind of nursery-rhyme like feeling, even though the meaning of the poem is actually quite disturbing. Again, I love the simplicity and complexity of this poem. The meaning is hidden behind complex metaphors, but the poem is not flowery or pretentious.

I think that's really the key to being a successful poet, and it's what I haven't learned yet: how to truly write about the self, but at the same time make it about someone else, and how to avoid cliches like the plague. As much as I try, I can't help falling between the cracks of those dreaded cliches sometimes. I suppose it's because I don't have so much life experience, so I try to draw upon other people's. Probably has something to do with my age, but I'm too stubborn to admit it.

Monologue

So I wrote a monologue. Not for fun, but for English, because I no longer have time to write for fun. Yes, it's a sad world we live in. Or I live in. Whatever. Anyways, obviously I like this better when it's performed, but as I don't actually want to post a video of myself performing it, I'm giving you the text. We were supposed to write about a controversy, which I didn't quite do, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Obviously there's a lot of things in here that I put in to convey that it was a believable character speaking, but it looks really annoying in writing, so ignore the "like"'s and the "you know"'s. Without further ado, here it is...

You know that famous poet? Kabir? Yeah, he inspired me a lot. He’s Indian, I think, but there’s a lot of different stories about how he was born, and where he was born and stuff. Some people think he was Muslim, but other people think he was like, rejected from Islam or something. Anyways, he says in one of his poems, something like “The Self forgets itself.” That really hits me, you know? I feel like he really knew what he was talking about. Like, we keep wandering around like we’re the most important people ever, but in reality, we don’t matter at all. Like, people halfway across the world couldn’t care less about us, you know what I’m saying? But we forget that. “The Self forgets itself.” Yeah, he knew.

And what really gets me, you know, is that everything he said, it’s true. And that’s not really the amazing part. What’s amazing is that it’s true after all this time. Isn’t that kinda crazy? Like, how did he know all the way back then, that the world would still have the same problems now? And this guy was like, back in the 15th century or something! I’m telling you, it’s incredible stuff.

It really bugs me, this whole thing about everyone thinking they’re so important. It’s like, shut up, you know? You aren’t important, I’m not important, nobody cares about us, so stop being so full of yourself! They do these experiments, you know, called stuff like “Six Degrees of Separation”. But it isn’t true. I mean, sure, it might be true that we all know each other through six degrees of separation, but who cares?

In the long run, who cares if we are connected to someone through someone else? We’re just so full of ourselves that we don’t get that the world isn’t about us, you know? Like, it’s like the way we’re seeing it is: (draws a circle in the air) here’s the world, (points to self), and here’s ourselves. That’s the ratio in our heads. That’s how small the world is to us. But everyone else’s lives don’t revolve around how they’re connected to us…

I didn’t used to think this, you know. It didn’t used to bother me that I only thought of myself, because at one point in time, it was every man for himself. But I hate that now. I realized, you know? I realized that it doesn’t work. Because I care about other people, you care about other people, we all care, and if we didn’t, well damn, that would suck. I tried to follow that, every man for himself, but it didn’t work out all that well.

(chokes a little on the words) Because you know, when my grandma died, I cared. I couldn’t help it, I cared. It wasn’t some sob story, like she got cancer, or had a heart attack. It was just old age. And I wasn’t someone who couldn’t let it go, or couldn’t ever be happy again, but I cared. And it showed me something, because people change, you know?

So I never would have realized that it wasn’t about the self, and it wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about someone else either. I mean, people are gonna cringe when I say this, but what it’s about, what it’s really about, is all of us. Can you imagine if I had just kept on being my cold, heartless old self, who only cared about my own success, my own failure? But people change. And thank God for that, that people change.

Update

That's right, I did it. I revamped the blog. Just wanted to let you know (for no apparent reason). There is another, more meaningful post in the works, but I dont have the time to write it right now. Adios, until later...