The Venus Flytrap: Infidelity Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Infidelity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The lines we draw and how we negotiate them are all that varies between who we think we are and what we could be capable of. We are all that person.
What wounds me most may be nothing to you; what devastates you may be a [...]

Truly

Something happened that leaves the book stuck. There is no longer any funding. The book budget, and with it, some elements of the production process, have disappeared. Literally, overnight.
What this means is that I do not know when my book will be published.
And that is okay.

The Venus Flytrap: Is Marriage The New Singledom?

I find myself, at 22, an old maid.
No, I’m just being dramatic. But you can’t fault me for my dour mood considering that in the past year or so, I’ve discovered that I’ve turned into a minority: unbetrothed, un-hypenated-surnamed and barely past legal age, I’m surrounded by people in my age group who’re taking the [...]

The Blasphemy Reading

Venue is a mystery because it is extremely cool.
RSVP to find out.
Ok, we discussed it and changed our minds.
It’s the Rama temple in Koyambedu, near the outstation bus stand and the market. Meet us at the little cupola-like thing (CC’s description: small platform with a roof) outside. 10am. Bring poems that fit the theme.

Man Twitters Out Of Jail

I’m not on Twitter because my life is way too hyper-connected as is. And because I am an egoistical artist type prone to enjoying shocking people (though not on this prim little blog), I would be totally addicted to inflicting the minutiae of my fabulous life on everyone who declares themselves curious.
So I don’t.
But here’s [...]

Review: “The Palace of Illusions” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

First published in today’s The New Sunday Express.

Because I work with the reimagined archetypes of Draupadi and a (female) Karna in my own writing, I cracked open Divakaruni’s retelling of the Mahabharata expecting, even hoping, to feel some envy. The Palace of Illusions presents the epic via the voice of Draupadi/Panchaali. It’s an ambitious project, [...]

The Venus Flytrap: My Weekly Column, Out Now!

So I woke up nearly two hours early today because I had to see the paper.  After six years in journalism, my byline by itself is no longer a source of hysterical excitement. But (deep breath) I have a column!
That column is The Venus Flytrap (special thanks to Chat for suggesting the name), in the [...]

Talismans

One of the residues of my unfortunate upbringing in one of those disgusting godmen cults is that I place some faith in the idea of the talisman. (Other residues would include wavering agnosticism and intense hatred of said and similar godmen cults.)
It’s something that’s been shown to be at least a serendipitous belief, if not [...]

Junot Díaz

Do you get frustrated by always being identified as a “Dominican” writer or a “Latino” writer, and never just as a straight-up “writer”?
No, because there’s no such thing as a straight-up writer. I think when people say a straight-up writer, what they really mean is a white writer. In other words, historically [...]

Jerome Kugan’s Songs For A Shadow

In Indonesia. Two more famous poets were cropped out. Teehee.

Have you ever experienced a piece of art and become overwhelmed with the amazement that someone you know, a beloved friend whose fridge you’ve raided, whom you’ve fought with, whom you’ve travelled with, produced so breathtaking a creation?
Because that’s what happened to me when I [...]

April 12 — Lazy Saturday Poetry Open Mic

So, April 12 is a big day for me. It’s when the first installment of my column in The New Indian Express comes out. And it’s also when my dear buddy Jerome Kugan’s album launches. At least two reasons to celebrate, but what does one do when feeling too lazy?
Have a Lazy Saturday Micless Open [...]

Poem: Mermaid

MERMAID
They found the mermaid the morning after.
She was the colour of homemade toffee, burnt
in places, mellow in others. Her hair fragile
as flax. Her beautiful, brittle fins. When the man
who found her, lifting the seaweed veiling her face,
knelt at her hip, his breath like broken glass, she
looked to him like she would crumble to the touch.
Around [...]

Karna Poems on Kritya

The only video of my readings that I’ve seen so far and liked was shot by Sze Ying Goh at No Black Tie, Kuala Lumpur on April 1 2007. You can find this video in the ‘Narc Is I’ section of this blog.
In it, I am reading “Karna Considers Yuanfen”. This was the first of [...]