I deleted you

I deleted you. It's easy. Twenty first century allows you to press the button and delete a person. Put somebody into non-existence. Erasing the past and unborn future as if we could programme our brains not to think and remember. But can i erase memories? They still linger in my head, even though your face is just a meeting point of incoherent lines that somebody once scribbled in the sand at the sea shore.

A poet once told us to hurry and love people for they leave so quickly, and only the shoes remain and the phone that rings on...

But that dreadful twenty first century does not care for rounded dialers, only the numbers shining on a screen, like the numbers tattooed on forearms of men in concentration camps. Nameless, faceless digital numbers imprisoned inside a tiny box. Prisoners of the twenty first century.

My grandmother used to write letters to me. The most beautiful letters I could imagine, 4 words on each page for her eyes were too weak to write small letters. The stories that I heard so many times in my life...

My grandmother was walking in the street when the rains broke and a man came towards her holding an umbrella. That's how she met my grandfather. And they stay together through his army days during the war. No phones, but letters and memories. She cherished those memories for the last 30 years of her life that she spent without him.

The piano she used to play.
Exhibition of my paintings in her room when I was 6 years old.
Dog whom she taught how to dance.
My woolen dresses, caps, gloves, scarfs, sweaters that she would knit.
Her conversations with her own self as she was sitting alone in an armchair in her room.

I still have them, they are undeletable, unlike the numbers that are constantly changing together with people.

The hungry princess

The alarm rang at 6.35 am as usual and Rajkumari opened her eyes only to realise that she is lying on a hospital bed.

'Not again!!!....' she thought to herself remembering all those multiple surgeries that were performed on her in the past - the forceful insertion of black contact lenses, cutting down her height by half, multiple open heart surgeries and everything else that resulted in her suffering from a so called 'distorted self-image' disease.

But the hospital seemed different this time. First of all, after a long time Rajkumari could actually choose her hospital voluntarily, and since she was getting older and supposedly wiser everyday let's all hope that she made her choice really carefully this time.

 One of the most striking features of the hospital was that the treatment was being done for free! Can you imagine, dear reader, that there are still places in this world that do not demand extra money as fees for the doctors and nurses? She was also surprised to find out that the hospital staff believed in naturopathy and the treatment did not involve scalpels, cutting, or any other harmful equipment that could cause permanent damage to one's self, instead imagination, laughter and long conversations were used, and so our Rajkumari enjoyed spending her time with the nurses.

One of the nurses was a tiny dwarf with long beard and spiky ears. He happened to have lived in the North Pole before, and had even met our Rajkumari once in the past. He was responsible for telling Rajkumari that she was not the only person who could not stand the cold climate of the North and decided to run down to the southern parts of the country. 'Really????' our Rajkumari exclaimed in disbelief infused with a shade of bemusement.... ' but all this time I thought that I'm the only one who could not get used to strict intellectual marketing lines pronounced loudly by everybody in the North Pole, hm..., maybe I'm not that silly after all....'

Another nurse was responsible for music therapy as she exposed Rajkumari to various kinds of music from Bach to electric guitar, while yet another decided to give therapy of hugs and affection. Wasn't it Mr Che who once said that 'true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love'? 

This type of therapy seemed to be doing wonders to our Rajkumari, and so she sat on her bed and looked around with her green-grey-brownish eyes and exclaimed loudly 'BREAKFAST!!!!' To tell the truth our Rajkumari was a lady, and had it been for herself she could have satiated her hunger with a single cup of tea, but she had a tiger to feed... and the tiger was really hungry... the tiger was actually starving, as the days of constant warfare made the tiger famished...(she successfully threw a grenade last night at the troops trying to call her from the deserted kingdom..... how did the troops manage to find her new whereabouts she did not know, but still she managed to fight them away)

So Rajkumari sat quietly in the corner... well... not that quietly, but let's give her the right to be loud from time to time as she is learning how to express herself freely and clearly,  and she began to sharpen her magic spear that she was preparing for the elf. You see, she suddenly realised that she loves the art of warfare, especially if the opponent proves himself to be an elfian prince in disguise... And so she started scheming of the tortures that she would expose the elf to, before throwing his body to the hungry tiger.... 

She would first pierce the elf with her spear and then hang him upside down over a cooking fire and with her magic pen she would write different words on his skin so that he would wriggle in unbearable pleasurable laughter that this type of torturing was giving him. This over she would scratch his skin off his body to peer at everything that was hidden inside, and then she would hand over the remains of his to the hungry tiger, who would train the elf in the art of purring before deciding to finally taste the flesh of the elfian creature.... very slowly, bit by bit the tiger would consume every single part of the elfian body.... and then.....

And then the time for lunch would come, so that the elfian slave would be send to the kitchen to prepare some tasty food for our hungry Rajkumari, who can't live on tea all her life after all, but she does enjoy assisting in the kitchen.

Band aid

I hurt my finger. It was an ongoing process that lasted quite a few years and there was no band-aid around. I think the crust is still fresh and I don't want the blood to flow out of it again. I'm too old for it, you now?
Dramatic outbursts. Bad acting. I know. I don't like parsi drama myself. I like non-proscenium intimate spaces.
I hurt myself while reading. The finger was cut on some of the pages.
I recently realised how many of the children books should have been banned from the shelves. It's only now that I'm discovering how the childhood we had influences our present. Examples are many... thought I might tell you some over a cup of tea. They are very much there in that metal trunk and I think it's time to clean the house and arrange the space. I need it for myself. I don't like carrying extra luggage with me.  I recently threw away and old dress from the metro station. It feels so light without it. It changes so many things.

You know, sometimes we tend to infuse our readings with meanings that aren't really there. We place a mirror in front of the audience while we perform on stage at the same time. I'm a gate crusher into a performance that isn't even mine.
I wanted to be a good reader. There weren't many books involved and I believe in reading them thoroughly...
They might be one that I would like to learn by heart. My silly little tail of cat's brain run so far that for a moment it even imagined an optional career in gardening. But it feels scary too. I don't want to cut my finger again. It hurts. I don't enjoy throwing stones.

There was a book of naturalism once. It started in a nice way, but then some characters underwent a sudden change of style which involved pills prescribed by good old Freud and one day the reader found herself lying on a floor of a room and the two hands extended from the book and caught the reader by the throat. There are those sudden moments in life when you stop carrying for a second... you just want it to be over... and then suddenly you discover how much you want to live and that you actually do have muscles to push those hands away... What followed was a sudden international phone call, that was only bandage available at that moment.
Do you know the feeling of being so connected with somebody that the very sound of that person's voice makes you feel how that other person feels? that international connection was that strong. And in the lands further to the west a sudden worry resulted in a sudden deterioration of an already ill body and somebody was holding somebody else's hand while standing on a wiping cloth.

There was also a gradual change in language in which that naturalistic book was written... I think it made the reader feel sick and she still hasn't fully recovered. It sometimes makes girls write those words infused with a mixture of fear and inability to comprehend that someone could actually understand the writer's sense of life and humor.

A few hand claps were also involved in the cutting process. People do tend to clap a lot at the end of a performance, isn't it?  It wasn't a bad book. It's a sad book. The reader really tried to read it but one day simply couldn't do it anymore...She relocated to a small palace in the less familiar part of the city. The book is not there on the shelf anymore for many years. But I still kept the title. It was a compromise. I needed the title page because sometimes the library authorities ask for the titles if you want to stay in the library for more than just few hours. I love this library. Can't imagine myself anywhere else. I've been a member for so many years now...


I do get high on my trips sometimes... and green trees in the south do make me feel alive.
Many things were taken out from old chests of dreams that were shut for a number of years. The school, the trees, the room... They were there with me for such a long time packed neatly in my saris.

 I need a doctor with a bandage very much.   But then again... I don't like proscenium theatre, intimate space would be a better choice to stage a play.

The tale of Rajkumari

She stood up with her hands on the parapet, gazing far away at the clouds that covered the sun as it was slowly descending to fall asleep in that land of dreams beyond the horizon. The birds were still crossing the sky in their last attempt to laugh before they would fall asleep in their nests.She was standing there in expectation of seeing those beautiful green feathered creatures that would fly by the balcony every evening. She could feel the gentle touch of the wind in her hair. The same hair that would hide all her thoughts and fears seemed much softer now, as if suddenly the warmth of the place and people around helped her to brush through it every evening as she kept her head on a pillow of dreams that suddenly began to fly out freely to create magic designs on the walls around.

It rained in the afternoon as she was standing in the middle of a busy street waiting for the bus that would take her to a place where dreams transform themselves to reality. Drops of rain on her face as she looked up to challenge the sun and discovered that a painting is awaiting her somewhere high up in the sky. A rainbow of smiles and peace... Even the sense of longing seemed to have faded in colour as she looked at the bright light around here.
She smiled gently at a thought of a rainbow that her mother used to make for her among the red poppy flowers and roses that she would water on warm summer's days.

She felt another sense of warmth recently. A child laid next to her and with every breath she could feel how this tiny life absorbs every thought of hers, every breath, every emotion. It wasn't even her child, but still she wished to keep that tiny creature in her arms and just be there in that warmth. It was a new feeling for her and suddenly she began to wonder if one day she might be able to pour herself into another tiny being, a sponge absorbing the world. What kind of the world would that be? What would be the colour of his or her eyes? Would there be somebody looking at her as her own belly would swell day after day? Would he put a hand on her belly and tell stories to both of them?


There once was a Rajkumari who could have had anything she wanted provided she would give up her own self to the orders of a king. But even when she was a little girl she would often lie down in her hammock somewhere between an old pear tree and a cherry tree and she would imagine that she was not a real child of her king father. She would pluck the cherries and keep them on her ears pretending that they are the most precious earrings that one could ever had, and she would dream of lands far far away beyond the horizon...
She was a strange Rajkumari who did not want to ride on a back of black shiny horse, she preferred her donkey instead. She even kissed one a night before as she saw him standing lost somewhere in the busy street. The sense of belonging that was lost and it was not easy to find it again.
As all Rajkumaris she once dreamed of meeting a Rajkumar, but you see, the XXI century stories make Rajkumars speak a lot about dreams they have and then run away to get themselves TVs and expensive mobile phones, which often leaves Rajkumaris laying down on a cold floor of a hospital bed needing expensive multiple open heart surgeries that can sometimes be dangerous for mental health. Anyways, this part of the story happened long long time ago, and our brave Rajkumari already managed to blow up some of the forts of the plastic troops with her tiny army of words...
So what happened to her then? Nothing special, you see, she was wise enough to know that simple things can have more value that those pretty shiny boxes that we see in the TV commercials, and so she packed her tiger and a few skirts (she was a girls after all, and all the girls want to feel pretty from time to time) and decided to go away in search of a strange colourful elf with crooked nose, rude manners and strange language of images that he would take out from his magic bag every now and then.
And then??????
And then Rajkumari pierced the elf with her magic spear and she fed him to the tiger... And they lived happily ever after in a tiny house among the green trees by the lake.

my world

I live in the world of signs, colours and metaphors that stand between me and the grey world outside.
The smell of emotions...  Love of the vanilla fragrant.
Thoughts dreaming inside the entangled long hair.
I learn languages just like I learn people. The older one gets the more difficult it is to learn a new language, to learn how to read a new person. I learn patience as I scribble the letters in my little notebook and feel amazed to discover how the worlds of unknown signs slowly allow me to discover them on a board of a moving bus. I learn the letters so that one day I could learn words and grammar. I don't want to be a curious student who stops education at learning some phrases overheard here and there, I want to learn about the shapes of letters so that later on I could complete the puzzle of words around me. I want to immerse myself in the language so that one day I could even write my own stories.
I want to stand in a shade of a colourful tree and look around the garden, just like my mother did when I was born to a 42 year old woman.
I look at animals - free souls of birds flying in the sky. Green parrot's squawk when she complains secretly about the harshness of the world. The cat that keeps his head on my shoulder as we drift towards the lands of dreams. The dog that curls himself next to my feet. The mouse hiding somewhere behind the corner.
I am the chief commander of my army of words that run towards the battlefield knowing that defeat awaits them there every single day. Battlefields and markets are the places where I don't belong. My little government school had no funds to teach me how to trade the heart, they spoke of revolutions instead.
I dream of evenings spent at the threshold with stars above me and an oil lamp lit somewhere in the corner. A wrinkled hand of an old woman. A letter from the past that was found in the present. Memories and dreams intertwined in vapour flying away from a cup of hot tea.

Manual

1. Never laugh at her height for in the last I don't know how many years she was being constantly reminded of it in a rather negative way, and each time somebody speaks of her height she feels as if she was some strange specimen, a misfit, an animal in the zoo.

2. Never laugh at her poor pronunciation and spelling mistakes. None of the languages that she uses is her own, and she did spend quite a lot of time to learn each of the languages that she speaks. Unlike you she did not go to an English medium school, she went to a very simple government school and she had to learn the languages on her own. But at least she tried. She is trying to learn how to read and write in another language right now, and there is nobody around who would help her with it.

3. Never tell her that she is from abroad. She happens to have been born in the same country of humanity as the rest of the people in this world.

4. Never tell her that she is just a Bharatanatyam dancer for you have no idea about other things that she has done in her life. She did not study at a fancy institute abroad, but the moment she decided that she actually wants to be a bit more than just a Bharatanatyam dancer she did her own studies in libraries, by meeting people, by watching people's work, working with people and by stealing knowledge in every possible way. She is a big thief when it comes to knowledge and she's always hungry for more.

5. Never tell her that she does nothing in life, for she actually does quite a lot and tries hard to make independent living.

6. Give her gifts. But not the material ones, she does not care about them. Give her gifts that are special and only for her. Give her words, she loves them. Give her moments to remember. Give her memories, and give her a gift of sharing your thoughts and fears. To give somebody your own vulnerability is the greatest gift of trust. Give her knowledge. Teach her everything you know, she always loves learning.

7. Give her time. If you don't have it try to make it for her. She is not greedy for time, but it is the gift of time that would make her feel important for you.

8. Accept her for the way she is. She does try hard to accept you for the way you are, no matter how complicated that is. Understanding lies somewhere in between.

9. Try to understand her moods. If she is angry then most probably she is angry with herself rather than with you. Her anger is often self destructive. She pretends to be a strong person with an air of self-importance, but in reality she is just a girl with very low self-esteem who is scared that you might reject her. Remember that if she gets angry it means that she does care. She does not like getting angry, and it always works when you try to make her laugh in such situations.

10. Talk to her. Anytime and about anything. It makes her feel important. She loves it when you share your thoughts, work, opinions, jokes, words, fears, happiness with her. She has not developed any telepathic abilities as yet.

11. Give her compliments if you think she is worth it. But never try to give her the false ones. She would never admit it in your face but she loves compliments, she did not hear many in her life.

12. Never shout at her nor try to raise your hand. It brings some scary memories into her head, they still hurt.

13. Be frank with her. If you care do tell her so, if you don't also tell her - she deserves to know, and she is big enough to deal with it.

14. Try to ask about her life and work. She would love to discuss her ideas with you, even though it frightens her that you might find her silly and uninteresting. And believe me, if she ever asks you for help, or your opinion it does mean a lot.

15. Love her cat, for he is the most important companion of hers.

16. Be patient, she does know that she is not easy to deal with.

17. Be gentle, for she is a real girl with real emotions and not some kind of machine.

18. Don't lie. The hardest truh is always better than the sweetest of lies.

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