Unraveled

It was crowded, yet again. I looked up and saw her. She was standing right in front of me, her face beaming as brightly as the plastic orange seat I was sitting on. She smiled; I turned away, casting my face downwards, pretending to sleep. Lying through the pretense of my slumber – I was getting good at it. Besides, I knew that she was not as old as she looked, and that despite appearances, my body was more tired than hers: I had been working the whole day. Tiredness and age are not proportionate variables, this much I knew. I looked up briefly and soaked in what I could see of her. It was always my belief that one should always know the faces of the ones they love, hate, are betraying, hurting, mocking, or killing: ownership. She looked like a dozen carnations popping out of a block of cement: the sturdiness of her body, erased by the aura of colors and fragrance of flowers. She was like a memory. I could also see the density of grays that peeked out of her hand-woven sun-hat. Her hair was beautifully bun up with intricate braids that ran along both sides of her oblong head. I sliced my eyes open from my fake slumber again and saw blurry hands, viciously in motion: like a murmur on steroids. She was knitting something. Orange.

... 

The Interpretation of Untitled Loves

stereotyping slaps ye in the face

i hop into a cab from uni and the taxi driver engages in a conversation, as usual.

taxi driver: so you study in NUS. smart huh.
me: no lah. it's just NUS.
taxi driver: you're Malaysian right?
me: huh? no i'm Singaporean. 
taxi driver: really? oh. cos usually Malays in Singapore aren't that smart. they don't go to uni.
me: what? you're wrong. there are loads of Malays in NUS. 
taxi driver: really? seldom see them.
me: that's because the majority of the people in this country are Chinese. so of cos it's hard to see a lot of us 'minorities'. besides, i'm Indian. not Malay.
taxi driver: huh? you're Indian. then how come you're wearing the scarf thing?
me: that's cos i'm Muslim. Indian Muslim.
taxi driver: ooh! but you're quite fair also, huh? and no wonder you're smart. Indians are very smart.
me: how do you know? you see a lot of Indians in NUS, is it?
taxi driver: not really. (pause) i'm very confusing ah. (laughs).
me: yeah you are. 

stereotypes confuse. don't buy into them.

the mermaid from nuruL H. on Vimeo.

the disembodied genius

my lovely friend, chand, recently linked me to this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of

Eat, Pray, Love. brilliant discussion.

the disembodied genius. the idea that our creative processes involve an other-ly intervention or contribution. that it is not fully our own. that we do not own it. that it comes from nowhere and everywhere. and would leave when the work is done. to be passed on to another. for another creation to be manifested. across time and space.

i've always believed in the idea of the cosmos and how inspirations, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and messages of the many exist within it. released. let loose. or sometimes lost. and i believe in the presence of the divine who artfully crafts opportune chances for the meeting between these floating specters and their medium, the artist. a collaboration, as Gilbert beautifully puts it. collaborations that can happen anytime. anywhere.

interestingly, i find my meetings with such specters mostly contained within the four walls of the toilet. restroom. bathroom. pee-pee place. whatever it is called. i never linger long in the loo. for good reason. but i would be in the midst of sorting out laundry for the week when, POOF! in the middle of a shower. POOF! in the middle of the blessed* act of shitting. POOF!

*i consider shitting a blessing as i believe the human body would not be able to contain itself had it not been given an outlet for release. as the saying goes, what goes in, must come out. so that more can come in. again. and out. again.*

hence, i consider myself lucky for being chosen for collaborations without having to wait it out for centuries in that one space. waiting to be hit by the apple in the head. or having to travel to the end and back. but then again, i have been told that some of my ideas are crappy. shitty. but i suppose, it's better to be crafted as a vessel than a plastic plateau that simply allows for everything or anything that wants to latch on, be wiped away. the important thing is, to become. to become a vessel for something. anything. and then to act with it. accordingly. poetically.

of fate, freckled pages, & an uncracked spine

i just finished reading Veronika decides to die by Coelho. i've been meaning to read it for a while now but didn't for i believe that my relationship with books, like love, exists and is run by fate. i read a book when i am fated to read it, even if the book is within my possession and i find my hours in the day sauntering away. each time i finally read a particular title is when, at that point in time i find myself searching for an answer, to something. answers that most amazingly grow in the pages of the book. as we are all permitted our idiosyncratic ways of reasoning, pray, leave me with mine as i sway a little into another story about fate.

i believe that i am fated to do 'art'. i took art classes when i was a youngling. an eager girl who spent her afternoons after school tracing pictures of flowers and animals from huge encyclopedias. words didn't interest me. i derived immense pleasure from holding a crayon in my hand. second skin. its somewhat hard clay-like texture felt normal against my rough skin. i also loved it when crayon got under my nails. as i was a nail-biter, i found myself on several occasions swallowing small deposits of crayon buried under my nails. i've since however, stopped.

art class. i won second prize for the school's art competition drawing dinosaurs (long necks). using crayons, i drew three long necks, a mom, a dad, and their child. the typical family unit. mother insisted that i not draw the 'm' birds -those that children would usually draw- as those were 'modern' birds which did not exist in the time of dinosaurs. in her eyes, my drawing would lose its authenticity. she specifically said that if i wanted to draw 'birds', they would have to be those 'dinosaur birds'. the pterodactyl. winged lizards. not birds after all. but i didn't know how to draw those 'dinosaur birds' and my sky in the drawing was looking too empty. and so i drew in the 'm' birds. the fake birds. a lot of them. i won the second prize. there was however a girl in my class who knew how to draw a real bird. she drew a parrot so perfectly shaped and colored for the competition. it was green and had a sharp beak. she won the first prize.

i'm sure it wasn't because i didn't win the first prize, but my parents soon reprimanded me whenever i decided to draw and trace. i should have been studying instead. and so i studied.

i took art for my 'O' levels and did very well in it. i got an A and with encouragement from my art teacher, was determined to head to the local art college. this didn't sit well with my parents, especially my mom. no future in being an artist. and so i headed to college to do my 'A' levels. and then university. and then had thoughts of doing a PhD, until finally, i reach this point in my life where i'm revisited by art yet again. through photography, tea bags, and ink, i've become addicted to art and it is something that i plan to start and finish, even if it means i'll have to learn to draw a 'real bird'. i've since recently purchased, after 14 years, a new box of crayons. pastels!

they're still delicious!

so yes. i believe that i am fated to do art. even though it took me many, many years to actualize and chart its path in my life. i believe it as much as i believe that i was fated to finally read Veronika decides to die, for, having refused to spend $26 on it at BORDERS, i finally got to it at a second-hand bookstore at Bras Basah complex two days ago. it was priced at $5.90. and even though the cover and pages have been freckled by time and the sun, its spine was still uncracked. i fell in love. instantly. and i got some answers.

crutches

there once was a man who, unwilling to allow himself, even for a moment, to forget about the poor, the desperate, the tortured, the dying, the hungry, the crying, the raped, or the saddened bombarded himself with an unbroken chain of images, sounds, and records that sustained him in a state of constant sorrow about happenings around the world. his body, mind, and heart etched to the desk. his laptop. his TV. his radio. googling. shuffling between channels. tuning in and out. listening for grave voices that report disasters. searching for sombre faces amidst footage of war. scanning for words like victims, flood, Taliban, destruction, die, violence spike, Rwanda. it took him that much effort to wallow in that state of catastrophic depression about the world. he died young. his face embedded with deep frown lines like that of an old man, and his heart, still crying.

hook in the eye

her world was an ocean. a vast spread of a universe that contained within, pockets of life. habitats enriched with vibrant beings that bump into each other, like frenzied atoms. touch. leave. touch. leave. there were also spaces of void. empty in its echoes. like a swallow of air. a residue of nothing. she swam amidst this ocean like a bulb. darting from place to place. on and off. but one day, appeared from above, a shiny blur that sparkled. calling. enticing. come forth. it said. and she did. a hook in the eye.

she escapes her world of the ocean.

storytelling inc.

in 2008, the 10th of May was devoted to Pangea Day. a day devoted to film, to be shared by people from all over, watching the same films, at the same time. it was broadcasted via the www and hosted across the globe, forstering a shared community of people experiencing the same stories that created laughter, evoked awareness, saddened hearts, and enlightened spirits.

Pangea day was born out of a wish of a TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim. her wish was simply, to have "a day, when the world comes together, through film." featuring the contributions of a diverse pool of creative filmmakers across boundaries, Pangea day was indeed a success and it brought out, once again, the ability of stories to unite people, despite differences. unfortunately, Pangea Day was not set to become an annual event, for there are currently no plans for a Pangea Day 2009. that is indeed sad news. however, not all is lost for from it, we are once again reminded of the importance of storytelling.

STORYTELLING



i have always believed in the power of stories, in its ability to do more than just tell. but also to affect. a story is never just a story. and so i've lived my life surrounded by them. from Enid Blyton, to the cinema, onto the news, documentaries, reality shows, ghost stories, stories through songs, music, art, photography, interviews, conversations, gossip, people. continuously exploring a diverse range of media that i have begun to recognize as stories, for they become reflective of deeper concerns, issues, innuendos, symbolisms, realities, and nuances that would otherwise go unrealized.

every society has storytellers. for most of us, it comes in the form of digital media, for that is the medium through which we create and channel our packaged expressions and thoughts. in Jeffrey Snodgrass' study on Rajasthan, there exists a group of people known as bhats (akin to the bards). they are storytellers, historians, and poets who spend their days telling. they collect and tell. they retain history and help disseminate and perpetuate it within the community. they embody all cultural, social, and political information and transmit it, person to person. generation to generation. they become the stories.

and so, i believe that each person is a storyteller. all he or she requires is a platform to tell.

i have been thinking about this for a while now, and have discussed it with a few friends. i also recently came across a most interesting read by a friend on facebook. Shao Han. his thesis thoughts on stories and mythmaking. a highly intriguing piece. i myself have been working on stories, as a narrative medium and method to how we - within our culturally-created canon of symbols and ideas - experience the inscribed meanings and realities of our everyday.

why do we tell these stories? and how do we do it?

and then i realized that to merely answer those questions would not suffice. what become more important to me was the telling of stories, as the more we tell, the more we share, the more we are made aware, the more we understand, and hopefully, the better we act.

and so, the project. it is not a TED Prize, but a personal undertaking i wish to share and include anyone who might be interested in it. anyone who wants to tell a story. their stories. any story.

visit STORYTELLING INC.