This is a story that you may find useful if you’re an Indian woman.I have  had to place two complaints against my family for sexual harassment and mental harassment.I now live in a different city from them.I haven’t had enough sleep because they don’t want me to sleep, and abuse me in every way they can.

My brother thinks of me while he masturbates.My father thinks about me while he masturbates.

Competition in the field does not help.People I have worked with years ago want me to acknowledge them to the extent of giving up working, and going into purdah.Among women where you expect solidarity, there are those who would use sexual harassment as a tool to get ahead.

The poet writes this work on the eve of Indian independence, with a sense of melancholy about the fruits of labour, he verifies that this is not the independence that was sought after. The poem begins on a dark note with disillusionment, the bittersweet nature of the triumph. It goes on to describe the single mindedness with which the voyages of this journey resisted the temptations of fancy., and when dawn finally appeared, when the storm clouds cleared then came a sense of clarity between the struggle and the goal. The poet then goes on to describe that the comrades are changing, how in which gratification is sought more than angst, and the pain of partition does not weigh on their apparent disposition. The fine breeze of dawn has just passed by and the wayside lamp barely noticed. The gravity of night has not lightened, and the time for redemption has not yet arrived, so the poet urges his comrades and compatriots to keep walking, for that destination is not in sight.

Yahan se shehar ko dekho

In this poem the poet is writing as a response to the 1965 roits in Karachi. In the dismal picture that he paints , the city looks like a maze with exit, like a prison , with no freedom and where repression reigns. The city he describes is one with a faceless crowd where no one is allowed to grow, where every man is a potential victim and every women a slave. He describes the lazy anarchy of the morning as a thankless hopeless circular prison walk.

We’re into the fourth day of the six week residency.I’m going through a travel agent in order to get the Visa made, and he says that it could take about seven days for the Visa to come through.

The organisation says ‘better luck next time!’, but I’m not willing to let this residency go…I need it desperately right now…the energy, being in Pakistan…1947, 1961, the Urdu, a chance to work with Citizen’s archive of Pakistan, having a show in Karachi…

I feel really culturally drained right now,  and this residency and making work around the theme ‘State of being so divided’ promises to be cathartic as well as rejuvenating…It would be a pity to let it go.

The Asia Writes Blog is closing down.This is what they say.

Due to financial constraints, we are forced to stop updating Asia Writes at this time. If you would like to sponsor the site or have contacts with institutions that would like to fund/ help in keeping this site running, please get in touch with us at asiawritesmail@gmail.com.

This is how the journal describes itself:

SunDryed Affairs is an online nonfiction magazine, featuring primarily the work of writers of color. It was born out of the noticeable lack of ethnic diversity in the collective blog arena, a place generally filled with quality writing, yet oftentimes, writing for, by, and about one tiny corner of white America.

The name is a play on the words “sundry,” meaning various, and “sundried,” which calls up images of brown. Our goal is to make a space for writers of color to share an array of ideas, whether on politics or music, travel or family, from the quotidian to the earth-shattering, in an environment that feels inclusive and familiar while still being distinctly fresh.

This is a link to the page.

I’m terrible excited that I’ve published here, writing from India.It makes me seem like the process is getting somewhere, knowing how hard it is to live and survive , even in a post-colonial country.

street scholars 'enchantment and politics' programme

Cognitive science is one of the most the most challenging fields in academia today and is exciting and interdisciplinary in the ways that it can tell us about the mind.
The national institute of advanced studies is holding a summer school on cognition this month and I’m happy to have gotten in.more on the courses I haven’t blogged coming up.

I’m thrilled to be visiting Pakistan; it could be  cathartic experience for me, after having dealt with communalism for a long time in my career.I’m both anxious as well as enthusiastic about spending time with the Citizen’s Archive of Pakistan.