Shiva's Arms

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Spring!
2008-03-30 00:18:00
Here in DC, the Cherry Blossom Festival is well under way. In Kerala, spring and the new year will be celebrated with customs very similar to those of the Iranian Nowruz. In India, if a tray set with good luck objects--mirror, money, jewelry, flowers, a lamp--is the first thing a celebrant sees upon waking, he'll enjoy good fortune all year. The Persian Haft Sin table includes these objects, among others, as you see in the photo. Here is my poem for Vishu:She bends over daffodils, clippers glinting in moonlight. Bells harvested, she blots dew in a wad of nightgown, slides back into the house like a thief.Her ponytail pantomimes a question,but she knows the answer—the whole year’s luck depends on her.She arranges silver rupees, an oil lamp, the scripture on a mirror. The heater cuts on and she jumps, holds her breath until his evens.Her palms slide down her throat to her wedding necklace. She touches the carved vermillion Ganesh. Upstairs, an alarm goes off. Pulling the chain ov...
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Fighting Words
2008-03-28 15:39:00
Frost and Stevens had a famous argument in Key West in 1940. They were drunk and making fun of each other's writing. Stevens tells Frost, "The trouble with you, Robert, is that you write about--subjects." Frost responded, "The trouble with you, Wallace, is that you write about bric-a-brac." For a discussion on being difficult, click this.
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Galway Kinnell at Split this Rock
2008-03-27 15:10:00
See what you missed?In this clip Kinnell reads ananti-war poem by Paul Celan titled"Black Milk of Daybreak."For more about Split This Rock ,the biennial poetry festival ofpoetry of provocation and witness,visit www.splitthisrock.org
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Bad Blood
2008-03-26 19:04:00
I've posted a story, first taken by the Princeton Arts Review, at Scattered Light. This story, Bad Blood (purely fiction, of course, of course) contains the germ of what became Shiva's Arms. Enjoy!
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Panguni Uttiram
2008-03-25 16:02:00
Panguni Uttiram is a festival celebrating the celestial marriages of Shiva to Meenakshi and Subramanya to Theivanai, among others. It is celebrated over a ten day period, and goes back to the time of the Chola King, Rajaraja Chola. Shiva, Perumal and Murugan are all worshipped during this festival.Here's a story about the temple of love in the birthplace of the poet Thiruppaan Azhvaar. He composed ten famous verses on Lord Ranganatha (one of the celebrants) called Amalanaathipiraan. The text can be found here.

Easter Communion
2008-03-22 22:11:00
Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast: God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.You striped in secret with breath-taking whips, Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be piecedTo crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nipsBreathe Easter now; you serged fellowships, You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased, God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spentWith oil of gladness, for sackcloth and friezeAnd the ever-fretting shirt of punishmentGive myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent: Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees. --Gerard Manley Hopkins

Holi, the festival of color and togetherness
2008-03-22 14:20:00
Today, I'm happy to introduce you to our guest blogger,Jennifer Kumar. Also known as Jayanthi, she has been creating and maintaining a website about India, Hinduism, and spirituality since 1997. Jennifer has had the extraordinary experience of living two years in Chennai, India as a college student, and was the first American to earn a Master’s degree in Social Work from Madras Christian College. Here, she tells us how Holi is celebrated in South India.Holi in a Different Hue: Exploring Connections to Holi in KeralaBy Jennifer Kumar If one wants to celebrate Holi in all its colored splendor, a trip to almost anywhere in North India during the Holi season in March is the first choice. Though Holi is celebrated all over India, South India, in particular Kerala, is not famous for Holi revelry. But, Holi exists in Kerala. Some communities celebrate Holi under the name of Holi and it is every bit reminiscent of Holi in the North, while other communities, especially in the Palakkad Dis...
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Q & A
2008-03-19 20:20:00
Secrets revealed! Answers uncovered! Nic Sebastian's Ten Questions, posted at Scattered Light, asked and answered!

Cursing Bagels
2008-03-18 15:08:00
The Strathmore continued its stellar series last night with pianist Alfred Brendel. Did you know he also writes poetry? This is from his collection Cursing Bagels(Faber & Faber, 2004)That pianosshould not merely be cookedbut also smokedhas recently been discoveredby pure chanceA fire in the local piano storesurprisingly revealedthat smoked pianossound nobler than cooked onesIn huge fireplacesthey now hangthose dispensers of musical delightlike blackened hamsbeforesmokey-grey and spicythey satisfy the cognoscentiHenceforththe famous house of Bösenstein will refrainfrom boiling pianos hard or softaccording to taste

Not for Leprechauns
2008-03-17 20:52:00
Had enough green beer? Try a lassi with cumin and jalapeno. The pepper turns it a delicate shade of green.1. Combine 2 cups of plain yogurt with 8 cracked ice cubes.2. Cut a single jalapeno in half and remove the seeds, unless you like it really hot. Toss it in the blender, and blend.3.Stir in a pinch of cumin and a little salt.4. Serves both of you. Enjoy!

Lang Lang
2008-03-16 13:25:00
Both pianists were in town recently. One is often characterized as a show pony, the other too cool by half. Which is which?

Why Pi?
2008-03-14 17:16:00
I have it on good authority (thanks, Kim!) that today is Pi Day. It's also Einstein's birthday, so party on, dudes.Piby Wislawa Szymborska The admirable number pi:three point one four one.All the following digits are also initial,five nine two because it never ends.It can’t be comprehended six five three five at a glance.eight nine by calculation,seven nine or imagination,not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparisonfour six to anything elsetwo six four three in the world.The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.The pageant of digits comprising the number pidoesn’t stop at the page’s edge.It goes on across the table, through the air,over a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, clouds, straight into the sky,through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.Oh how brief—a mouse tail, a pigtail—is the tail of a comet!How feeble the star’s ray, bent by bumping up against spac...

The Great Man
2008-03-13 15:16:00
Here is where you'll find information about The Great Man and its creator, Kate Christensen, 2008 winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Savitri Nombu
2008-03-13 00:14:00
Tomorrow, married Tamilian women will pray for their husband's longevity. It is Savitri Nombu, the festival with the Satyvan – Savitri legend at its center. The princess Savitri used all her powers of intellect and persuasion to get the god of death to release her husband, Satyvan, in this story from the Mahabharata. It is interpreted as symbolic of how conjugal love can conquer death-- “Satyavan is the soul carrying the Divine Truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, Goddess of the Supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save" wrote Sri Aurobindo's in his Savitri - A Legend and a Symbol.On this day, women wear a sacred yellow thread adorned with flowers and turmeric, and pray that their husbands stay with them always. They serve karadai nombu adai, the same dish that Savitri offered to Yama for sparing her husband’s life. These fried doughnut-shaped cakes of black-eyed beans can b...

Indian Hip-Hop
2008-03-11 15:38:00
Emily Wax has an interesting article in the Post today, about a fab new club in Mumbai. What interested me was the description of the featured group, Bauchklang, whose name means "tummy tones". The members use no instruments. Instead, they draw on the ancient techniques of throat singing and konnakol, or "mouth percussion". An example of the classical variety, as performed by Sri TH Subash Chandran, can be sampled in the clip above.
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Another Lost Hour
2008-03-10 01:26:00
Daylight Saving My answers are inadequateTo those demanding day and dateAnd ever set a tiny shockThrough strangers asking what's o'clock;Whose days are spent in whittling rhyme-What's time to her, or she to Time? --Dorothy Parker
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Kavi Darbaar
2008-03-08 18:01:00
Today marks International Women's Day. In the Punjab, a poetry symposium, or kavi darbar, was organized, and noted poets like Ulfat Bajwa, Lachhman Singh Rathore, and Varinder Ummat read their poems. Here's one by Taslima Nasrin: CharacterYou're a girland you'd better not forgetthat when you step over the threshold of your housemen will look askance at you.When you keep walking down the lanemen will follow you and whistle.When you cross the lane and step onto the main roadmen will revile you and call you a loose woman.If you've got no characteryou'll turn back,and if notyou'll keep on going,as you're going now.

Horoscopic cookies
2008-03-07 00:40:00
Want a virtual fortune cookie? Get one hereMine says:Spoons offer you interesting new opportunities next week.My sister's says:Conquistadors have no use for radioactive waste materials.I'm scratching my head...
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Tandav
2008-03-06 00:34:00
Today is Maha Shivaratri, the day commemorating Shiva's marriage to Pavarti. Devotees fast all day and stay awake all night, chant and pray. They eat only snack foods, and in some households drink bhang lassi,the reputed favorite of Shiva. This movie excerpt features the Tandev dance from the film 'Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje', all about Shiva and Pavarti.

INTHEFRAY
2008-03-03 16:48:00
My sister Janet and I both have work in the new issue of INTHEFRAY magazine,in the IMAGINE section.William Julius Wilson says this about the magazine--"INTHEFRAY describes itself as 'an online magazine devoted to issues of identity and community.' In light of the remarkable economic and social changes — really upheavals — occurring in the world today, that mission can only be called ambitious. The magazine’s dedicated journalists set their sights on the frontlines where identity and community are undergoing tremendous flux, climbing into the trenches to give a voice to often invisible movers and shakers, or just plain strugglers. At a time when nuanced analysis of critical issues suffers in a toxic environment of ideological ranting and corporate coziness, INTHEFRAY provides a forum for genuine informed discussion on the Internet, which has assumed an increasingly significant role in creating a space for dissent. It fulfills the Founding Fathers’ dream, that an inquisitive...

meme
2008-03-02 22:29:00
The latest meme has us picking up the volume of fiction closest at hand, opening it to page 123, finding the fifth sentence down, and writing that sentence out, as well as the three sentences that follow:The boy seemed overwhelmed with all he had to do-- offer drinks, distribute the napkins, introduce Amma in the traditional Brahmin way, without uttering her name. Just now he was trying to stick to protocol, and although he spoke in English to the guests, they still had no idea what to call the regal little woman in the white sari.//Ramesh introduced himself to Nigel, thrust out his right hand, and pronounced his own full name with a flourish of rolled Rs. Next, he bowed to Mary. She surprised him by touching her forehead with an arrow of fingers and murmuring “Namasté.” (Shiva's Arms)Now wasn't that fun?
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Bhima Ratha Shanthi
2008-02-29 22:32:00
We got an invitation yesterday to attend a brother-in-law's 70th birthday. The occasion is called Bhima Ratha Shanthi, and can include a ritual in which the celebrant and his wife formally reenact their marriage ceremony. Although it's the man's birthday, his wife receives a gold mangalasutra, a necklace to replace the one he gave her at their wedding. The name joins two words: mangal means sacred and sutra refers to a thread. The wife wears the chain of gold and black glass beads throughout her married life,like a wedding ring. When the husband dies, the wife's vermilion mark on her forehead is rubbed off, her marriage bangles are removed, and the mangalsutra is taken off. T.P. Kailasam, noted Kannada playwright, wrote a story entitled Tali Kattoke Cooline ("Wages for Tying the Mangalsutra"), a story that criticizes the dowry system. Sorry, I don't have a link.

Kabir
2008-02-27 22:02:00
The mystic poet Kabir is said to have been born six hundred years ago. He died at the age of 120, and upon his death, his body turned into flowers. He's known for his couplets, but here is a longer piece:The bhakti path winds in a delicate way. On this path there is no asking and no not asking. The ego simply disappears the moment you touch him. The joy of looking for him is so immense that you just dive in, and coast around like a fish in the water. If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offerhis.

Excerpt of the Day
2008-02-26 16:30:00
A novel? No. I don't have the endurance any more. To write a novel you have to be like Atlas, holding up a whole world on your shoulders and supporting it there for months and years while its affairs work themselves out. It is too much for me as I am today. Still, I said, we have all got opinions, especially about politics. If you tell a story at least people will shut up and listen to you. A story or a joke.Stories tell themselves, they don't get told, he said. That much I know after a lifetime of working with stories. Never try to impose yourself. Wait for the story to speak for itself. Wait and hope that it isn't born deaf and dumb and blind. I could do that when I was younger. I could wait patiently for months on end. Nowadays I get tired. My attention wanders.(Diary of a Bad Year ,JM Coetzee)

Attukal Pongala
2008-02-26 00:27:00
Pongala is the day when domestic duties are exchanged: women cook, not for their families, but for the goddess Kanaki, making rice-jaggery in earthern pots. Make-shift stoves line the roads for the celebration. At home, men take over the household duties, autorickshaw drivers take the women wherever they want to go, free of charge, and vendors offer free drinks and food. Read Jennifer Kumar's blog (link at left) for a first-person account.

The Red Carpet
2008-02-25 20:47:00
No, it's not all about the Oscars. The Red Carpet :Bangalore Stories is a book of short stories by Lavanya Sankaran that recently caught my eye. Set in present day Bangalore, the war between modern and ancient mores is illustrated by characters like Ramu, in "Bombay This". He's a 30-year-old software employee who decides it's time to find a wife, so he employs his mother as a matchmaker (or "Connubial Pimp"). He's still a free agent when he becomes smitten by a Bombay woman much too modern for dear old Amma. This story reminded me of an article in the Post, about the problem of prospective brides and grooms misrepresenting themselves during the arrangement of their marriages. This story profiled a young woman who sleuthes out the truth behind the photographs sent to whichever relative is negotiating the match. She goes from gig to gig on a motorcycle, gathering incriminating evidence. No more 70 year old men marrying a traditionally suitable girl on the basis of a pre-independ...

Octaves
2008-02-24 16:30:00
I have a new poem up at Octaves Magazine. The Victorian nest in the poem is real, blue ribbons and all. It's still in the maple, and although he birds haven't visited lately,it's waiting for them like a vacation house.

Six Word Memoirs
2008-02-23 17:36:00
Can you describe your life in six words? That's what the editors of storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers in 2006; the results, though decidedly uneven, make for compulsive reading and prove arguably as insightful as any 300+ page biography. Taken as a whole, this cascade of quotes from contributors famous and unknown creates a dizzying snowball effect of perspectives and feelings. Highlights from professional writers and artists include journalist Chuck Klosterman wondering, "Nobody cared, then they did. Why?"; pop singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger lamenting, "We still don't hear a single"; and comic strip artist Keith Knight illustrating "I was a Michael Jackson impersonator." At their best, these nano-memoirs evoke the same kind of rich emotional responses as a good story: 9 year old Hannah Davies considers herself "Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends"; Zak Nelson says "I still make coffee for two"; Scott Birch claims "Most successful accomplishments based on spite." So...
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Namagiri
2008-02-22 17:41:00
This is a representation of the goddess Namagiri, in the arms of her consort, the lion god Narasimha. The goddess was credited by the Indian mathematician Ramanujan with inscribing theorems on his tongue as he slept. David Leavitt uses this information in his new novel, The Indian Clerk . The book deals with the relationship between the "Hindoo calculator" and the English mathematician G.H.Hardy. This biographical fiction uses the novelistic element of transformation very well, painting a portrait of a repressed Hardy changed and opened up by the genius he felt responsible for, and the upheaval of war. No wonder Hardy considered his experience with Ramanajan the most "romantic" of his life.

Tam Bram In a Jazz Jam
2008-02-20 23:54:00
Talking about speaking pianos, how about that Madhav Chari?
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