With Due Respect to Those Who Eventually Find Their Way

Streets, Signs, Directions…

I am known as one who reads the signs. That is the only way I know where to go.  I am the quintessential ‘wanderer’ in the sense that I will wander very often because I do not know the direction that I need to take. It embarrases me to admit this, but I may have traversed a road often enough and still not know whether I need to turn right or wrong, sorry, left , from there. And this is not a case of senility taking over, I have been like this from the day I began  to venture out on my own.

I mean, there are all kinds of travellers in the world, aren’t there? Do note here that despite this apparent lack of direction, I am one gung-ho traveller. There is a place to see in the world…just lead me to it. I am a taster of strange waters and listener of stranger talks and I just love it like nothing else. There is a sense of wonder in travelling and seeing a new place. The fact that I may not find my way home is very far from my mind when I venture out. Foolish? I would say not. I have an enquiring nature and am willing to stop every furlong and ask for directions. Thank god I can read the signs. Sometimes I just have to read them, remember them, and then move on.

But I know the reasons for this lack of street sense. I can enumerate them and perhaps will find a few who will sympathise and empathise. As a child I travelled in a chauffeur-driven car, and in the point to point travelling, I never looked out of the window. Even when I did look out, I never noticed anything, least of all directions. I was either day dreaming, or had my nose in a book. I never felt the need or desire to watch the world go by. Strange,for now I see and look and watch. Then, after marrriage, I travelled with my husband, and once again, I moved blindly, in complete faith and trust, not bothering about directions. It is only when I began travelling on my own for work that the issues got raised. Left or right or straight ahead began to be big questions that loomed on the horizon for me. If I wanted to reach that horizon, I had to know how to get there.

I agree that I cannot hold the exterior environment as totally responsible, I did say that I am a day dreamer and a reader. I had to change all that when I began to travel alone. It has made me become aware like never before of streets and signs and landmarks for destinations. I also know that many people who daydream or read while travelling will still know how to reach a place. Alas, I am not so gifted. I have to din the directions into my head. And of course, I can read signs, and thank god for them popping up everywhere.

I once gave directions to a friend who was pick me up from my mother’s house. We were a group of writers from all over India who were meeting after a long time and all of us were looking forward to this meeting. My friend arriving safely at my mom’s place to pick me up in time. I patted myself on giving him good directions, you could just see me beaming as I hugged my fellow writers. Imagine my chagrin when he said, “Abha, I just went in the opposite direction of your instructions. That is why I have reached here.” The fact was that he lived in New Delhi and had soon figured out that whatever directions I had given him would not land him at my mom’s doorstep, but in the market behind it. Now how could I react to this? I could be upset in his proclamation of this in front of my other writer friends, or just be happy that he had arrived. I swallowed my pride and took his remark with grace, got into the car and pretended I was not smarting at all. I was, though. It is difficult to admit to one self that one is not purr-fect. Especially when people usually tell you that you are quite a cat. Such statements help you see you for what you are. Okay, so cats have their quirks.

And at least I can read signs and behave smart in front of certain auto drivers who insist on stopping at every traffic light  and asking questions like, “Madam, do you want to go right from here or left?” with complete innocence. As if Madam knows. Yet, at any such driver query, I nod sagely and tell him to take the fastest route,  since I want to get to the place in time, and surely he knows the way, being an auto driver and all that? And I hate him forever for trying to see whether I do. Delhi auto drivers can give you a good merry-go-round of the city if they get a whiff of uncertainty from you.

What happens in places where the signs are in a different language? Or the people speak a different tongue? I look helpless and throw words around, go through the guide book, accost a stranger and see if s/he knows the languages I do. Someone always come as an answer to the silent prayers I send out. Like in Ponidcherry, where they only speak Tamil or French and I I didn’t know either language, I was often in a fix. However, I would always find some auto driver who spoke English,  what with so many foreigners visiting Pondicherry.  And, I even found one who spoke Hindi whose mobile number I took immedaitely, so that I could call him for my expeditions into the city. In Bangalore, I found it very tough, though, for Kannada (the local language) stumped me and my languages stumped the drivers there. So then it was just clear enunciation of the destination street name, and then trusting the signs and the gods.

I wartch carefully now, spot and remember landmarks. I also guage distances and directions of movement. I note which side of the road I got off on, so that I cross to the other side for the return ride. I have found that I am not so helpless when I am on my own, I do find my way back everytime, whether on the tram in Paris or the autobahn in Berlin. Or on the Metro in New Delhi, my hometown. So I do know that the Metro blue line goes from East to West Delhi, the yellow line from Central Delhi to Gurgaon, and so on. There is also a purple line, and that is so exciting, since the colour purple makes me go green with delight.

I may be dumb with directions, but then, ask me where Rykjavik is, and I can tell you on the map. How many can? And if I know where it is , rest assured I can get there, for I know all about streets, directions and tell tale signs. I also have a woman’s instinct and am loaded with intuition. More than enough to get by on any street I choose to make mine at any time in my life.

As for finding my way back from my adventurous outings…I did mention I am a kind of a cat, and cats always find their way home. Purr-fect.

Return Encounters of the Class Kind

I am writing this after a long time, have had several classes in between but somehow had not felt like putting it all down, maybe it was just that I was so busy completing my novel. It is done. I am happy, and taking a breather, not thinking about the next stepping stone yet: you got it, the publsihing of the novel!

Meanwhile, to saner things.

The class was back again to being interesting. Good turnout, and the airconditioning  on full to kill all hot and humid feelings from the flesh. What was hot and churning was the brain. The topic for the day was dialogue writing, and there was much to be discussed here. The initial exercise was of a mother telling her 14 year old son or daughter to change his/her clothes which she considered unsuitable and the child’s reaction. This was to be in the form of a dialogue. Some responses were more narration than dialogue, one lady misunderstood it to be a father telling the child off, but apart from such gaffes the exercise had its high points. There was a story of how a girl refuses to take her dupatta to cover her head in the gurdwara, saying she will pick up a scarf at the place instead(a compromise of sorts but also getting her way), another one where the child accepts  being left behind at home rather than change her clothes. In another tale, the child is told  that even though he thinks he looks like Farhan Akhtar dressed for the Tomatino Fair in Spain, such an outfit would not go down well for a grandparent’s birthday party. Here,the mother tells the son he looks like a Holocaust Survivor while he thinks he looks like a film star. She also says that his outfit would not go well with her kanjeevaram saree, so it was a funny one, this one. In four out of ten stories, there was talk of ‘banging doors’ in anger as people stomped out or into their rooms. So we had a discussion on the banging of doors and someone said that in her house they cannot bang doors, and someone said his dog bangs the door for them, another said if the door banged, the walls would fall, and so on. ;)

We then did an exercise where one of the girls, a 9th class student , wearing tight jeans and strappy purple sandals, braces and spectacles, and hair in pony tails, was made to stand in a Shringar Mudra pose (which she learnt as a student of kathak), and 2 of the paritcipants were asked to walk in the garden (imaginative), and chance upon this sculpture. They had to  comment on this ‘sculpture’ supposedly placed in the middle of the garden. The comments were funny to say the least, they were astounded at this post-modernist piece of art with the girl dressed in jeans and adopting a 'shingar' pose.(one hand holding a mirror in front of the face, the other hand putting a mark on her forehead, one leg bent behind the other and a hip stuck out). Then each one wrote the dialogue down as their version, as they thought it would happen, and once again we had some good pieces. There was a conversation between a hip- hop dancer guy in the US who found the statue yuck and funny and not dressed as it should be. He was with and Indian  girl named Shakuntala, called ‘Shat ‘for short , (I squirmed at this),who thought that the hip-hop guy should appreciate a dance form since he was a dancer, even though the dance form (kathak) is not known to him.

We then went into the nitty grity of dialogue writing, the punctuations etc., and this the class found to be a real learning experience. They were busy noting down the points and getting their doubts clarified.

The next class was equally interesting, but that is another story!

Recent Review of 'Flash Bites' e book

"Relationships seem to be the basic theme that weaves into most all of yor stories. Poignant are stories of broken relationships. But the most beautiful part of your stories are the IMAGERY. It is rich, graphic and all pervasive. It makes the reading not only powerful but also pretty and oh, so touching."


~Vasudha Gupta (Ph.D.)
Licensed Psychologist, USA


Link to Flash Bites: 
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/59782

My film Parwaaz can be viewed on youtube

My poem film, Parwaaz, means Flight.  It showed successfully at several international film festivals in Germany, India, Zimbabwe, and won the Special Jury Prize at Patras Film Festival, Greece.  With subtitles in English, it has been directed by Biju Viswanath. The Urdu poem is written by me and translated into English by me. I also act in the film and the voice is mine.

This film is now available for your viewing pleasure online on you tube.

Do watch and comment here.

My Presentation on The Story teller and Imaginative Spaces

A talk I had given earlier this year at CeC 2011, the Carnival of e-Creativity.I was one of the Primary Participants here.

I spoke on the Storyteller and his contribution to society. How, as a writer I consider myself a storyteller and my awakening as a writer to the various aspects of existence through the path of writing.

I speak also of Imaginative Spaces, what they mean to me as writer, and how collaboration is so important for synergy to take place.

It is an introduction to the process of writing, story telling, and through it, realization.


It is available on you tube and you can watch it and comment upon it here.

On my story ,'The Gourd Seller'

"While all the short stories in this anthology are viable narratives, the two
that stand out from the lot, to my mind, are “Seiji” by George Polley and “The 
Gourd Seller” by Abha Iyengar. Polley’s story is about an artist who grew up
and spent his life in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, Japan. With his intimate and
persistent grasp of the devastating violence in the aftermath of the Second
World War, the artist responds creatively to the given reality and looks beyond
the ravaged remains around him for light and life. Along another track of
violence, Iyengar’s story, set in the Indian city of Kanpur, depicts a Hindu
widow, Reena’s strange fascination for Altaf, the gourd seller, who falls victim
to communal violence. The story exudes the local aroma and ambience and the
literal translation of Reena’s outbursts has unmistakable Indian flavour."

~ Murari Prasad 
B.N. Mandal University, India 
on my story in this collection:   A Rainbow Feast:  New Asian Short
Stories.Mohammad A. Quayum, ed. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2010. 328 pp.
ISBN 978-981-4302-71-5.

The link here:

http://asiatic.iium.edu.my/asiatic/article/Asiatic%204.2%20pdf%20files/Murari.review.pdf

Beauty from Within

Real beauty is something which stems from within a person, it is internal beauty. It lies in the heartfelt smile, the gentle touch, the welcome in the voice. It is the shine in the eyes and the enthusiasm in the walk of the spirit which greets the dawn of each day with hope. Real beauty is honesty and truth that shows on the face of a person who strives to live by a certain set of ideals and beliefs.

It is often believed that by colouring the lips, outlining eyes, sporting a designer haircut, or wearing branded clothes, a person begins to look beautiful. However, beneath the makeup if the skin is unhealthy, or if beneath the designer clothes the body is unfit, then this kind of attempt at beauty is artificial. It comes off when the make up and designer clothes are removed. Beauty of the skin and body lies in being clean and fit. It requires regular cleansing and exercising, so that the skin is vibrant and the body agile.

Real beauty also means that we remain intelligent and aware and participate in the everyday human endeavour to live a wholesome and fulfilling life. We do  not have to be a film star or a public persona to do this. Leading our life based on our convictions and working with our strengths to create a meaninful existence makes us beautiful.

Very often, there is a loss of physical beauty, or there is a lack of what the world defines as beautiful. Yet we call that person beautiful. Mother Teresa is a well cited example of this. It is the beauty of her spirit and her love  that has remained with us well after she is gone from the world.

A really beautiful person is constantly learning, evolving and is happy to be alive. She is one who pays attention to her diet and exercise and keeps active and vibrant, attempting to face each day as it comes and tries to contribute in whatever small way she can to the Universe to which she belongs.

Real beauty from within will colour our lives for much longer beyond our years. It is also important to acknowledge the beauty of the world around us, the beauty of being alive. ‘Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.’

Real beauty lies in taking care of our health, both mental and physical. It means  having confidence in ourselves and  being thoughtful towards others. Such beauty is never faked, it will show through the  sparkling eyes, the glowing skin and  the happy smile. Whether we are young or old, when we are really beautiful, no one, with all the made-up perfection in the world, will be able to match our looks. For we will possess the gentle, lasting beauty if a Dove.

*****