Watch yourself pour
Into another
Vessel to vessel
Watch it trickle, watch it flood
Watch the gauge, the levels
It’s easy to love so deep
That you forget you’re not an ocean
Endless abundance
You forget this is a little tank
You’ve built and plastered carefully
Over the years
You forget the sweat and blood it took
To fill this up yourself
You’re busy watching yourself pour
Watching it spill onto another’s soil
Breathe their fields back to life
You’re in love with the sight
Of life returning
Of leaves reaching back towards the light
You’re enamored
I get it
It’s easy to forget
You’re not an ocean

It’s been five days. I’m still looking for a good place to repair it and I’m not feeling incredible urgency about it either. I’ve got Whatsapp on my laptop for a little chat here and there, I’ve asked my clients to email me, and the lack of phone calls and notification beeps has had an extremely soothing effect on my mind.

In fact, I’ve felt so much more present and productive since my phone died on me, that I’ve painted more, read more, and the other day I literally attempted and succeeded at homemade tuna sushi rolls. My friend Dee saw the sushi and said, “Maybe you should throw your phone into the ocean.”

I had a meeting outdoors the other day, and instead of using Google Maps, I had to get out of an auto and kind of wade my way towards the location by talking to strangers on the street who were kind enough to direct me. I actually felt like less of an automaton. I hung out with my mother and my cousins on Eid and the quality of my conversations was just different, without my phone in the room.

I’d also been feeling so drained in April and I wondered why. There’s more energy in me now and I suspect that my brain has been feeling overstimulated— constant news and updates on my feeds, whether about protests or the Kardashians or someone’s breakfast. My mind feels like it’s on vacation.

Sure, there’s the occasional vague panic. That FOMO feeling, tiny fingers niggling at the peripheries, whispering “Maybe you’re missing out on something right now, on Instagram, on Telegram, maybe someone wants to call you right now and can’t, maybe there’s a work thing you could be chatting someone up about today, maybe MAYBE you’re missing out on a party that everyone else is at.” But you know what? It’s bullshit. I don’t actually need my phone at all. I don’t actually need the internet at all. If someone really needs to get in touch, they can find a way, I don’t have to be online 24/7 for that to happen. But I’ve become eerily aware of the dependency, the addiction that exists, between me and my phone, the dependency that everyone around me encourages and validates. I’ve become aware that when I bleed words and pictures onto social media every day all day, it’s been leaving little behind for my actual creative progress, there’s a lot of ‘wastage’ that’s been taking away from conserving my energy.

I’m not saying I’m going off the grid. Well, maybe not quite yet. I love staying connected to the world. But even once my display comes back shiny from the repair shop, I want to enjoy long phoneless periods again. I want to put it away in the drawer for hours and be here, be present, in real life, without my eye twitching and wondering what’s happening in the virtualscape. I want to enjoy painting or writing for the joy of it, not for the sake of it being published on the screen. And I want to contain myself and explore the quiet pleasure of privacy again, in a global online culture that seems to glorify hastily throwing open the curtains and waiting for the applause.

First published on www.konectivwellness.com

Wellness and mental health are zing words today, you see them all over social media. But what does it really mean to be well? What does it mean to be healthy in your mind? Beyond all the yoga classes and strict diets?

These are questions that were thrust upon me over the last two years. Cut to me in my late 20s, approaching 30s, a Muslim woman in Sri Lanka, an artist in Colombo, feeling like an outsider of sorts, married, struggling with depression and anxiety, with no real space to speak about it in any constructive way. Trauma comes in many forms: I brushed aside my inner-child and didn't want to deal with her problems despite my therapist advising otherwise. I found it hard to reconcile what home meant, in a country that had a history of marginalizing minorities, a recent history of a government showing the utmost apathy to its people, but most importantly to me - to my community in a time of conflict. Trauma lives in the body.

Today I am 32, unmarried, living in Colombo, planning on moving closer to the coast, and I've deep-dived into the field of meditation and community healing. I began as a writer for newspapers when I was 18, then went into photography and film storytelling - what pushed me to leap into where I am today? My mental health. My wellness. At the tail end of 2019, I found myself staring into a deep, dark well, of nothing, of empty feelings, of aloneness, of not wanting to be alive. It's something we don't speak about, but we hear about often - if I had a rupee for every human being I met who has felt the darkness pull them into a pit, I'd be very rich. I had also by then, lost a few friends to suicide as well. I knew this would not do. There were two parts to me, ever since I could remember, since I was a child: one wanted to triumph and take over the world and make a difference, and the other wanted simply to die.

This is where vipassana meditation, sound, music, dance, community, self-love, freedom, exploration come in. I recognized and became aware that my mind was not in good health, and quite frankly, it was trying to kill me. One milestone for me was attending the vipassana retreats by Nisala.org, the teacher there had a bright, calm energy, and he guided us through becoming the observer, becoming aware, and letting go. We meditated in silence for most of the day and though it was scary at first, it was liberating in the end. I experienced absolute joy, and it came as a surprise, an unexpected burst. "Oh! I feel happy. Wow!" I was shocked. Grateful. My relationship with vipassana meditation grew deeper.

I tried to do yoga. I failed many times. I tried to eat well. Failed at that too. I tried to keep friends around, that didn't work out sometimes either. Then I stopped trying to go after it all. I just stayed where I was, I focused on myself, my breathing, my skeleton, my love for myself, my hate for myself, my feelings for things and people around me. I began to slowly feel what it is like to feel alive. And that was my huge takeaway: are we really living life, or are we walking dead? Are we feeling anything or are we just numbing ourselves to feeling? What are the cultural, traditional, habitual, social practices in our lives that keep us from feeling, from being alive?

I stopped trying to think, to overthink, to plan. I let it go. I did what I used to do as a child: I put on my earphones and lost myself in sound. I danced for hours in my house. It felt natural, joyful, it was unconscious, and my body began to feel alive again. Meditation had led me to dance, which then led me to yoga, which then led me to better self-care, then community, and conflict resolution. Therapists and friends and family were on the sidelines, on the peripheries, supporting figures. And all along there was a dedication to try and be my most authentic self, even in spaces that did not want me to, and to do that, I had to make friends with the little girl inside me who was carrying hurt.

There are so many parts that I can't include in this particular blog post, because there's so much that happened, so maybe I'll tell you the whole story one day. But for now, what I will tell you is that I have felt it in my bones, that there is light even in the deepest and loneliest of wells. It requires the utmost faith, the utmost self-belief, a kind of madness of the mind, to continue, and to dedicate oneself to an undying love for art, in which I believe the power of healing exists. It's not even a radical idea - art, music, dance, used to be the cornerstones of spiritual, religious and communal healing in ancient civilizations, from Egypt to India to Native America. There is a lost knowledge in our past as the human race - there was a respected and protected communion with nature, the nature of ourselves and our physical existence here on earth, that needs revival. Here's to the excavation of that knowledge, of the arts, of the self, of all the demons and the angels within us, in pursuit - despite all the odds - of truth and joy.

My favourite part was the location - WA Silva Museum used to be a printing press from way back, so sometimes you’re not even sure which parts are consciously placed by the artists and which are just parts of the old historical building. The exhibits lean happily between old printing machines and almirahs. The building is smack in the middle of WA Silva Mawatha, Wellawatte, unassuming and accessible. This reminded me of the Colomboscope exhibit at the breathtakingly old and crumbling Rio Cinema in Slave Island.

I’m a huge fan of art returning to the people, leaving the stuffy air and expat exclusivity of art galleries, and entering the realm of real time, real memories, real people on the streets of our island. This seems to be the direction in which underground Sri Lankan art is traveling towards, thankfully.

Raw Punk Visions continues till Jan 14th so check it out. I combined my exhibit visit with a long walk by foot from Wellawatte to Dehiwala. The last three photos were taken in the Wellawatte neighborhood, predominantly home to Tamils, Muslims, small businesses, and crowded colourful chaotic housing.

What is my new year resolution? I’ve never had those but I’m going to be a good sport and say: don’t have expectations, don’t think things are going to go exactly according to your plan, because you’re not in control, friend. Release control. That’s my new year resolution. Let go, lean in, let go of all fear and anger, but stand your ground when it comes to you, protect and honour yourself. This is how we were when we were children, when we were petulant little 3 year olds. We dived into things without a thought, and when we fell we cried wholeheartedly, and then got back up and ran again.

I’m making friends with my inner-child this year. We’re going to become best friends, in fact. And more than anything, I’m going to hold tight to my community, all the little cul de sacs of friends I’ve made who have stayed by my side, us taking turns to lift each other up when someone feels like a tonne of bricks in the quagmire. I have no expectations of them and am only grateful that they exist, that we reflect each other endlessly like mirrors, in our traumas and our joys.

If you’re in Colombo, Sri Lanka this month, I have two community gatherings so far to share with you: Jan 15th — an evening of poetry, music and story-sharing at Wilder’s, and Jan 22nd — a morning of healing through dance at Vedantha Academy. Here’s to beginning on the right side of the bed Inshallah, with both my hands in the air in praise and my feet placed firmly on the earth.

I groped in the dark
In the belly of the beast
I found debris
Shrapnel
From an exploded memory
Stuck in the walls
Oozing yellow feelings
Filling up my nostrils
My fingers curl
Familiar smell
Chest fills up
Like an overflowing sink

It’s the last month of 2021, my pretties. There’s yet another strand of some viral something that sounds like a lesser-known Transformer, people are still hosting weddings and parties, booster-shots and boundary-changes abound, and we’re all here hoping the next year doesn’t punch us in the gut (it probably will).

The title of today’s post is a reference to Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli classic My Neighbor Totoro. In the animated film, one of my all-time favourites, the two tiny protagonists learn about soot gremlins, little things that scurry through the darkness. They learn to spot them out, stand their ground even though they’re scary, and laugh defiantly at them till they run away.

After this, they hang out with a giant happy bunny type creature, but that’s besides the point.

How do we prepare for the year to come and the year to end? Maybe for starters acknowledge that time isn’t real, it just keeps on keeping on. So cut yourself some slack. Don’t try to be the Joneses for the holidays and new years eve. Nothing has changed, you’re still a struggling human, like the rest of us. No shame in that.

Second, hold on to the good ones. You know those friends or family you have, who are always honest with you? They cut through the bullshit? That’s precious. It’s a bumpy ride and what’ll help is at least having people around you with 20–20 vision.

Third, and I’ll end there because I like threes, maybe take a note out of Tolstoy and treat life like a game of war and peace. You’re in battle, but it’s also a video game, a test and measure of what you’re made of. Will you 1UP to the next round? Sometimes you don’t but you usually get to start over. Game isn’t over till you’re dead. Find some energy bars. Find a map. Find an ally.

Okay that’s all from me for now. Cheerful Friday, ladies and gents. Chin up. 🤡

I’m talking about the toxicity of all and any human exchanges you may have, with a partner or a friend or a parent. What makes it so, that in the words of great poet Serj Tankian, the toxicity ripens the grounds for disorder?

I tried to make sense of toxicity with friends today. During the pandemic, at home on a rainy day, they were all online. Some on Telegram, some on Clubhouse, some on Whatsapp. That’s what I do when something doesn’t make sense. I reach out and speak, I yell into the void, and most of the time, much to my joy, a voice or five speak back from the abyss that is the internet.

I keep myself open to the interjections. It’s important to listen, no matter who is saying what. And then you go about sifting through… What makes sense to me? Let’s put it in this pile. What doesn’t make sense? We’ll put it in the other pile. A few hours later and I had many piles of letters on my table, so to speak, full of useful crowd-sourced knowledge. My favourite part about it, is that the knowledge is usually all from personal, human experience — the most authentic source of knowledge there is.

I always start a conflict discussion now with a prayer, a fervent prayer, bismillah, god help me. Haha it’s almost like a plea of desperation, like “Sheesh this is going to be so chaotic, I’ma need some divine intervention.” After the discussion is over and if it’s frustrating I usually start humming a Tamil or Sinhala song to myself, about what a pain in the ass the person is, and how it feels as though I really can’t continue in this way (mata bah! in Sinhala. Or enakkela! in Tamil).

These are soothing methods of catharsis. You let it all out. Sometimes you let it out with an exasperated scream, a punch in the wall, sometimes it’s with a piece of song or a prayer. Now we get to the sifting part…

Who is toxic? Quite simple. Someone who is bad for your health. A parent, a friend, a partner, an employer, whose words or actions are directly affecting your personal wellbeing. You often feel you’re stuck with them, for whatever reasons. You engage and sometimes keep yourself inside the toxic conditions, ignoring the symptoms. The symptoms are: you are losing respect for yourself, you are getting hurt, you forget self care, your diet or body or sleep are taking a hit.

Cherish yourself and it will guide you out of toxicity. There is no shame in finding yourself in toxic waste, we’ve all been there, I’m sure. Some of us may not have even been fully aware of it, that’s how normalized it is. There’s no big yellow caution sign when approaching toxic human situations. ☢️

My friends and I said today: Trust your gut, prepare yourself well for war, try to find a way in, failing in which, move on, because you’re a queen who deserves the best, be honest, be kind, but don’t be a pushover, don’t let them execute you, execute them if they dare to (I took this one with a pinch of salt!), know yourself and who you are, assert yourself, keep calm, weigh your pros and cons and go with what feels right, assess if it’s worth the risk, is it worth your health.

The explorer must continue on the adventure, if the fortress is closed shut or throwing flaming balls of fire at you. There is much of the world to explore and today will not be the day we die.

When I was a young girl, I don't remember liking boys, I thought all boys were useless, I could not connect. I was also from a noisy, troubled home. I was looking for love, 'where is it?' I asked.

I wandered around, looking for it, searching. I found it finally. I found love in the pages of books. I found love in music. I found love in laughter. I basked in it, bathed in it, conjured it, danced with it. Every day I would step inside and bathe myself in this love. It helped me survive a noisy home.

Till today, this love has remained, loyal, ever-lasting, true, nourishing. It now takes my love of humans, of men, of women, of animals, of my self, and breathes life into it. I am grateful like a cat sleeping on a warm floor in the sun.

With wings as fragile as paper, it flies
Where it should not go, it goes
It does not understand
The complicated rules of ages

Those worthless attractions...
It doesn't see, think, or know limits
This silly, mad heart of mine
Wanders happy aimless

It can conquer all forts
Break through walls
Love is a beautiful thing

Yes! No!
The heart is tossed around...
It looks more like a ball that way!

Confused, it thinks this sand is sandalwood
And applies it on its forehead

It accepts every grief with a smile
It doesn't see, think, or know limits
This silly, mad heart of mine
Wanders happy aimless