Happiness is a yellow truck ...

An old Ford Truck by Idaho Springs

Its all about Domination

Of all the adventures that are thrown at me for a lark by the one on Top ... finding a safe haven has been a 1920's old Victorian House, in Kansas City. No, the neighborhood is just fine, it reeks of real life - sandwiched between 'hoods' that promise fun, although the police sirens are beginning to grate my ears of late. Even the lady birds are beginning to fall out of the crevices on a daily basis, their delicate ears (if they have any) bursting into short flights - and straight into the cat's ever hungry mouth. 

That does sound like a story does it not? Well I am waiting on its complete and utter fulfillment. Hopefully, the spring will make it more fun ... and I hear that, comes summer and the really hot weather ( which is not a promise but an actual threat) people from the hoods will be out and I can expect more drama. The roomies promise - that's  when the action starts. "You know the heat, it brings the people out, so far its been winter and everyone is holed up", and then, " You will see fights erupting and all kinds of nasty things that will occur right then. This is quiet for now." Awesome. I needed that confirmation was all.

I just cant wait for summer then, I might just have the police right in the back yard  too, where all the flowers are growing, giving them some relief from the smelly folks that they  might be after. Yep, its the drugs and prostitution beat hereabouts. Maybe I will be able to give them some water and not just to the plants and strike up conversations on homicides and violent deaths. And then, I could stop paying $ 9 to Netflix too. Now that's sorted, I quite realize this could be the cat and the mouse moments. Except bullets fly ... I did leave Gorkhaland for this, really really.

Meanwhile Twist, the cat has become an expert mouse killer  ( yea we have one killer  right at home). The last time he caught one, he played with it for a goodly half an hour, I gagged on the omelette I had been enjoying as a late breakfast. That mouse in his jaws and the omelette on my mouth was an epiphany --- we were both eating something alive, well, if the egg hatched it would give a chicken would it not? The survival of the fittest. At least mine was nicely done in a plate and smeared with pepper and salt, it even looked pretty. But, the cold deadly play of death that was occurring in front of my eyes, was a truly gag and die moment for me. My heart shriveled up to a tiny size and there was no place for Twist anymore, for a brief while.  Maybe it was like the mosquitoes I wait on patiently and slap -  splattering its juices into one ugly red/black blotch. Yea, I am done with excuses on why killing something can be such a  joy. And this rightly brings me back to the 'I hope I will never have a real time stalker while I wait for a bus to get back home, moments'. But then, I have purchased myself a bodyguard  - a stun-gun. Yes, I got one from Amazon, a hefty police special. Others order  vibrators, mine is a stun gun. I will be happy to buzz the nasty. Ha!

And  I am not going to lather anymore on safety ... damn! When was the last time I got scared of anything? Its like never. Maybe that's the jinx-- not being afraid. I wont ' BDSM Leather' either. The last time I opened the door for these fetish-visitors ( I hope my landlady never reads this blog and if she does I will be booted out of an adventure to a safer place), I managed to look everything but cool. My eyes were glazed with a funny glint, my lips formed a shape, I just know it ... but no words came out. It was as if  a golden Brad Pitt had materialized and and I was caught gaping. What could  I do? I haven't really had a bearded lady in the living room before have I?

Dancing with the Fire

My first Fire Dance video ... officially fun, dangerous and empowering. The elements when they combine - the fire, air,, the dance space being earth and the human body being water culminates in a performance that quite titillates the senses. To understand the concept of this form of dancing, which I formerly only saw as ' acrobatic and thrill-seeking' eventually taught me about 'grace and power'.

In a case of also the first time, I edited, shot, danced, and used Deva Premal's music 'Invocation" for this video. Have fun and enjoy! 

Bitch Goddess

And so the new avataar was revealed Mongolian Bitch Goddess. Even I did not realize that it could be true after all, through the years, there had been harborings of dissent about my 'pure'' image ... which was getting tarnished. The yogini whore. More so of underlined thoughts than action - the first a constraint and the latter of 'enjoying life in all its ugliness and obscene sentences'.

"Wow. You are the Mongolian Bitch Goddess. I have prayed for someone like you,  I am sick of the white bitches, all of whom seem the same, are the same and have no culture."

While, I went 'Ummm' ... and thought ' Phew! How does one man recognize the innate me, that I have not seen or at least not been, since the time of puberty'.  Not withstanding that I was  preening, prissy me a bitch. A Goddess yes. Had I finally found a man?

And as he spoke and revealed his wayward thoughts of the herd,  a tribe that  member-ed a select few, and that recognition of one another was a culmination of sharing dark dreams that were revealed in a mirror. No. Not looking at the mirror but of living behind it. It was a starkness of believing in oneself  as supreme than the next human that ate large plates of unhealthy food, an American dream that spoke of obesity, while the herd watched and proclaimed ' Really?'

Between freshly made meals, gory movies, and a cat that got aroused by the scent of his glorious locks, governments were discussed, artistic pornographic photography was viewed - glossy coffee table books that made me cringe, mostly with the notion that I felt no violation, but a secret joy of living art for its sake.

And reliving the magazines that had seductive women, I bought corsets, vanilla-jasmine essences, spat on my palm and rubbed Dragon incense sticks that smelled of sex, repelled and yet thrilled. Who knew these incense could smell of copulation ... it should have been  bottled and sold to the cold ' a-sexuals' so they could relive ' The eve of Adam'.  Verily, I was growing out of my starkness of holding out on joys that a man could offer me, even though it was all words ... and a promise of " Yes we are one, we reflect one another" herd mentality.

So, I heard .... so, I tried on black pumps with heels so high, I could have just worn the shoes and lain in bed ... walking was a trick, I would master one day at a time. Even as I saw myself from the mirror that reflected my awkward wanting to please efforts, from an angle the wrought iron thorns that decorated the bed, seemed like it was on my head instead. Crucified.

Yes. I was crucified eventually for being a Madonna whore.

That other surname

So, inordinately the other name that you get to wear for that summer called a wedded life is pleasing to the new bride. I too, went through that brief pleasure of feeling protected under the wings of a man and his clan. It was as if the new surname was a magical pill and I could flaunt it along-with the gold band like an armor against the society that wanted to know 'why I had not married for so long' or that ' what could have made me in-eligible' or even perhaps 'I was gay'. 

All surmises that -  vanished like a movie-theater popcorn fast eaten up by the hungry as they watched my film unroll. From the corner of my own booth, it seemed this was indeed worthwhile. The mob could be satisfied with all these superficial family drama laid out with a perfect smile ... honestly in the beginning it was a real smile that reached out from my stomach to the face. I was ga ga and yet all unclear. I was still free, then as I was now. 

 In the beginning, I would look at the owner of that surname, of whom had passed it on as societal/love gift to me. Days passed and fascinated, I would watch him covertly. Somehow the earlier 'eye to eye' had become just that. He had rubber-eyes, if ever there was a term that could describe the way he could bring his eyeballs to the corner-most part of his socket and watch me watch him. It was enough to know, that he was nervous especially when he saw that I had an ear to ear grin - it frightened him. To think smiles are supposed to evoke ones in return, this was the opposite.  Now I know, he was not the only one in knots, I was too. It was not purely gordonian ... it had love, helplessness, friendship, smothered- feelings and responsibility all rolled into one. A to be or knot to be.

That was when I think the knot that bound us was  untying really, the ring felt tight and uncomfortable ...sometimes, he removed it saying 'did not fit in the workplace'. I would sit and polish mine ... along-with a dozen others that were in a jewelry box, pining to be out there like the wedding band, almost arguing the fact, it was such a plain gold ring and how did it ever do justice to my pretty hands. There was no explaining the odds of why it was the Kingpin versus the beauty of other intricate carved panels of precious stoned 'other' rings in my collection. I would explain it thus, ' this one has a surname darlings' and a place in the society. 

Darn. 
Dammit.
Divorced. 

Today, as I stand, the ring finger does not even have a tan, stating that I am perhaps single. I still have the surname though, too much of a hassle to remove it from all the important documents that carried the weight of it. But as much as the river has run down the wedded bridge ... its amazing how a now- not- so- familiar irate voice seemingly screeched on a dreary hot Sunday, ' How dare you  call yourself Kwan Yu even now?'

How do you answer that? Coldly. Yes. 

' As you cannot have known my man. That is the name of the Goddess Kwan Yu, who also is known as Tara and I have had it since a long time, before even you existed.' 

Which brings the added marital surname to a ground zero. This name was married to me before all else. Call it fate. All that was required was to have it officially added to my own name.

 

Village of prostitues

In Bharatpur,  Rajasthan, the Khakranagla village is only about 200 km from Delhi. Yet, the village is a microcosm of rural India ramshackle houses, non-functional primary school and no healthcare facilities.

Electricity arrived here just two years ago. But what makes it different is that it's inhabited by a number of families of the Bedia caste who have, for long, been identified with prostitution. In the strangest way of harmonious living found  anywhere in India, the people of this village are matter of fact about their unconventional tradition - having their women - be it daughters, mothers, sisters,  or daughter-in-laws work as sex workers or prostitutes here. The men live off their womenfolk and most of them work as pimps here.

The picture above is of three generations of sex-workers from a single house-hold. In this villgae, depending on youth ( as is wont everywhere ) money is made. The oldest of women make rupees 10 or a little more depending on existing customers, the youngest (work starts for the girls per their wish) worker can charge upto rupees  200/300.   

However, there are some little girls who dream of further education and leading a normal life of a house-holder and there are the rest who want it easy - prostitute themselves, as its easy money and well... they like sex too.