home??

and so it is. After a short interminable-6 months in India, i have safely imbibed the honey-rich air of home and japan.
physically in one piece, emotionally at least two, possibly three.
it's nice to be home, to have people who will recognize your face and smile smiles that release forgotten pleasant feelings that stitch together the sea of time that once in a distant memory separated. in that moment, that first encounter turns into a moment that has always existed, a timeless, shapeless Pangaea we create through relations. but even so i feel i'm also lost, even in what i call home. so i think i'll write about how the past has melted into the now.

i remember during college a thought that constantly haunted me was the ghost of home. it was not so much an image of home or yearning of getting a plane ticket to go home, but an unrequited desire for something that no longer existed. home as it was no longer existed, friends left for other locations, family relations were forever altered and the ghost was literally that, a fading presence of home, transparently blending into other locations that have no absolute value but only conditional meaning derived from uncontrollable factors. and that thought was scary, that i had no where to run to, that even when a storm yanked away tree branches and rain pelted down the hands that reached up to grasp something real, something tangible, there was no longer somewhere i could run to for shelter, for a warm sheepskin blanket and a bowl of warm miso soup, someone to reassure me that everything was going to be alright, but it didn't happen cause the fugees broke up and they didn't come to dance that night.

i bring that up cause, A. the fugees were tight and should have stayed together, but also B. because home no longer had that absolutely value anymore. from afar it still has homeland status, but in reality i guess home is wherever different pieces fit together, and it takes time to find and connect the different joints. it's still an extremely comfortable place and it's such a lovely home, and seeing friends and meeting new peoples who feel familiar by the time you part make my dead cells sorry that they split so promptly, and spending time with my dad, cooking for him, drinking with him, talking to him about my life and the world and all the notes that fall in between has been groovy to say the least. but as of now japan is a transient space. in reality i guess my life style as of now is transient as a whole, and it's taking its toll, and it's nobody's fault but mine that i keep falling in love with all the fabulous people and beauty that surrounds me, and then i pack up and leave, leaving scattered holes of myself in different potential homes.

i can't really sum up my experience in india but the last day and the last week was definitely pendulously pendulous, but maybe from day 1 it was that way. i think more often than not india was an experience i was trying to sprint through, the end's seeming endlessness installing a frame of mind of survival rather than enjoyment. not to say that i did not meet amazing people who make living soo bitterly sweet in so many ways. but building bonds takes butt loads of time and sometimes that becomes discouraging cause when you're on the fly, it makes me cry that the well of love can go dry. predictably, the last week was filled with yearning to get out of unfamiliar territory so i could thoughtlessly float in a paper cup like a straw, hollowly functional, and just be a mere bridge between a pool of love and people, piping out sheer quenchingness to those in thirst. at other times though, i felt a burning yearning for setting down roots and strawing it up right then and there but then realizing the that was a hollow dream and i felt contempt for my style of life. in moments of parting i think emotions are attracted to polars, and a weird emotionalypics is commenced, encouraging oscillations of feelings trying to outflank the happy-sad continuum, swinging from groovy happy to gloomy sad like the 1920s were back. pretty emotionapocalyptic.

for me india was and was, and is and is india, just like japan is so japan. a country and a culture and a people's are always infinitely multifaceted. places that have a lot of character will always have an image that sprints past its physical embodiment, leaving traces of a place way before you arrive to the actual location. i was not there on a spiritual quest nor in search of meaning. just like everywhere i saw people struggling to survive, hustlin for a better life, for happiness for peace, obviously all in their unique conditions and statuses. i had a great time as well as a difficult time, and i have grown as a person there just as i am right now. i don't mean to belittle my experience but i also won't idealize it as many people seem to do. if anything i am as motivated as ever in pursuing liberation of all peoples because until all are free, none are free, and that is a belief i'll pursue till we all wade in freedom's sea.

india to me was where my ideals collided with logistical limitations as i did important work at an office that was less than stimulating but where work was needed to be done. i encountered lovely people who even though i couldn't speak to them and we had vast assumptions about each other, through our smiles we traced the histories of our lives. i felt the pulse of the city as i rode the bus through the city in the heat squeezed together like lovers embracing as if it was the last. i ate heavenly food while sweat, snot and tears, the holy trifecta, slipped away from the heat of the spices. just sitting one night i sweated so much i started laughing at the absurdity of the heat as my hair adorned itself with shimmering perspiration. i felt my heart slowly melt into aromatic wax as i conversed with amazing people who captivated my imagination with intoxicating word rings, extraditing me to a land where words cease to exist and emotions are directly hand woven and given. i lived moments that i wished could be preserved forever, where i wouldn't have to turn the page over because a small perfection was inscribed on that page, and i endured moments where i wished i could just hide under my blanket and wake up to a new day. it was a little bit of everything and whole lot of nothing. and as always at the end connections were severed and springs of inspiration receded until i started to dream of those distant memories that only happened a second ago but were left in that specific time and place, glinting faint yesterdays. i won't say that those bubbles of meaningfulness didn't leave indelible prints around the halls of my mind, but leaving a community has its consequences and its blighting my senses.

and thus here i am at home but not really. waiting for the future to start, yearning for the past to catch up. at present, i guess i'm kind of out of my mind and body.

poetry ain't an art, it's a state of mind, fool!!

I never gave you the keys,

so i'm confused why you're in here.

I've always kept my door shut,

even if nothing was there.

I never gave you the keys,

yet now there's not 1, not 2 but many of you here.

And truth be told, i really hope you stay,

or come again tomorrow, or even later today.

Cause you all are the light that was sorely missing,

the music that makes my heart go a sizzling,

Fuck keys and thanks to those who ignored my unfriendly signs,

leaving ineffable traces of sweet wine,

cannon bombs of fun,

and flourishing flowers under the sun.

in return, Love, is the best i can do,

expressing and living it true.

just something i wrote right now in the delhi heat cause i had a case of irrepressible beauty, which someone probably left behind, but i had to let it out.  some people quite simply and cheesily, inspire me to become the best, nicest person i can be and i feel so blessed to have met such people. even when times are hard, i just need to remember about these velvet smooth souls, and that'll remind me what i'm living for, velvet. i wonder if my capacity to love has just increased, or people's loving feelings have increased recently. whatever it is there's some mad magic in the air, and i can't stop sniffing it, especially cause i now have wicked yogic breath thanks to india by way of yoga, except sometimes when i have nasal problems which is an issue i briefly brushed upon in my penultimate post.

It's mad hot here...

it's the ma-h-nnnn i can't wait to get a beer kind of hot. it's the is it just me or are all the glasses inadequate and inappropriately sized cause i'm going to need at least five of these hot. the can't i sit in my bed at night without having to drench my shirt in sweat hot and the how many shirts do i need to buy so i still have clean ones by the end of the day hot. the just sitting causes super sweaty thighs, causing sticky clingy clothes, causing let me subtly but obviously grab my underwear and try to extract it from my butt awkward motion all the time hot, the damn have liquids always tasted this good?!?! hot, the sorry earth, usually i don't like showering but now i just gotta take them all the time hot, the how close can i get to the ceiling fan while still being safe? hot, the if you're keeping that bus window to keep your hairdo straight i'm going to punch you hot, the i use my sweat for salt now hot, the if you don't shut up right now i'm just going to have to punch you hot, the "pardon? could you be so kind to help me unzip my skin" hot, the i'm going to punch you because it's hot hot, the punching my self to supplant heat with pain hot, the suns gonna knock me out hot, and it's the, and it's the, it's the, it's the aaaaaahhhhhgggghhhh. naw, it's pretty hot but i think i'm-a-gonna be alright.

but seriously, i'm going to punch if you mention how hot it is again.

What it takes.

Some people go on soul searching journeys, traversing through foreign landscapes to shake off the familiar past that hounds and haunts. Others dive under the cover of a dark heavy blanket that drugs provide, the brief seconds of comfort slithering through their evaporating fingers as they get on their knees and cup their hands to salvage the moment's ease while tragically prostrating to the overwhelming pain. And yet others turn to self inflicted pain, trying to supplant the uncontrollable hurt each breath causes, despondently descending the spiral stairs of melancholy, their wounds a mouth opening towards the sky as if a receptacle loyally waiting for heaven's gifts; the wound only understands the language of blood though, and any opening where joy can whisper its thoughts is oozed over by the viscous wings of blood as it hunts down its weakened prey. Like decapitated chickens, we aimlessly thrash our existence against the throbbing walls of grief's labyrinth, grappling with the pain that dominates the landscape like looming thunderclouds with no end in sight.

For me though, apparently all it took was some pigeon shit to find the exit.

Side note. i just realized this blog has a fair amount of references to bodily gunk. I'm usually not this way, i swear!!

This all happened as I was walking towards the park for my usual, writing, reading and hand-standing session after my 6:30 am Yoga course. As i was walking down the sleepy yet vibrant streets where the pleasant breeze of spring's last breath gently stirs summer's sleepy yawn, I heard a small splatter, a delicate hole opening in the universe, the breaking point of fragility. It was a strangely familiar sound and its irregularity blended in completely with regularity, like a delicate rose rising through the cracks of concrete pavement. As if i discovered one detail that suddenly makes an obscure painting legible, I suddenly felt heavy weights come off my shoulder, the overbearing universe's weight imploding with that pop, and i could suddenly raise my head and get lost in the expansive unconditionally-empathetic sky.

I looked towards the source of the sound and i saw star shaped bird poop resigningly sprawled on the ground. Clenching my hand into a triumphant fist, i mumbled to myself "today is going to be a good day." If i had walked just a little bit faster that shit would have been chilling in my hair, like the ganga chills in Krishna's, only not really at all. I know this sounds weird but in all honesty it felt like a breakthrough in my thought process, the definitive kodak moment, the proverbial cha-ching instant. Not that i've been stuck in a whirling black hole of negativity, but i did see myself pinned to a bad spell that at times seemed would never let me go. I don't know if it was just my mentality but recently i've also felt like i've been a victim to chance's fickle disposition one too many times so early in the year. A recent regular recipient of Timing's unwanted drop offs of coincidences delivered in a jenga-esque haphazard manner, i've found myself cluelessly standing on the wrong side of falling timber. But post-pop, post-bird shit Ian is different; without fully understanding it, at that point i viscerally knew that i had escaped from chance's infinite mischiefs.  Or at least i'm going to try my hardest to believe in the spiritual answer that bird shit will give me, and i will squeeze as much substance as i can out of that thing.

There's still a lot of uncertainty that wafts in the horizon. Just the thought that time and distance's incessant gales blew us apart still gives me the pangs. But in all honesty, i know i'm really lucky and i should just suck it up and appreciate what i have, which is already way more than i deserve anyways. so maybe through this, through the words of friends that help you be, through the birds' chirpings that float on the winds, i think i'm now ready to believe this was all just a kind of reality check, a balancing of accounts that maybe needed to happen one way or another. Kelsey also parted these wise words with me that's given me quite a bit of perspective. She said "everything is going to be okay. It's just going to take a little longer than i thought." well i say, Truuu dat. In the end, time's relentless normality will steamroll over my emotion's stubborn wrinkles and i'll put my ironed suit and tie on and dive into the intimidating flow of people snaking through the city, seamlessly accommodating an astray puzzle piece, all of us quietly following oblivion's footsteps. Broken hearts will somehow be pieced back together, if not in the same shape at least the same odor, and fractured feet will find their dancing shoes. i think somewhere far far away in a dark hallway where gentle sun light leaves its traces intermittently, i can hear my feet already tapping to the rhythm of the city.

PS a ps from my journal of that day.
"an hour later as i shifted to a more shady bench, i heard another pop right next to me on the other side of the 2 seater bench. I still haven't escaped karma's bombing trajectory but i think i'm going to be okay."

How quickly things change

Now i want to apologize in advance to any if this post offends. Especially to those who are eating while web surfing, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place, especially cause then your keyboard is going to get all oily and i don't want to borrow anyone's grimy ass keyboard. Anyways, today i picked one big bugga as i was crossing the street, cause that's how we roll here, and i could suddenly breath sooooo much better, like mountain top fresh air status. it must have been lodged there for a couple days cause i haven't felt this much inhalability for a while. You cannot even imagine how the light shone through my left nostril. I've found the light!! Anyways, more on ian's weird self therapy to come.

It's raining in Delhi

and i feel somewhere in between a root nestled in the soft dirt, rigidly but gracefully soaking in the whispering rains that gently scratch the earth, and a pile of cow shit getting splattered around on the street, longing for the warm comfort of a body as it grudgingly blends into the oblivion of pavement decorated with other cast asides, used and discarded by a society that's forgotten its tracks were for moving souls and not steamrolling past console.

Lemme explain.

My 23rd March of my life physically was nomadic, as a Fulbright conference, travels with my dad and travels with my friend from Middle and High school chaperoned me around India. Emotionally, i've been an environmental hazard cause i've been travelling between the polar extremes, excessively and egregiously. Spiritually, i feel like a 3D puzzle that was once carefully assembled but since dismantled by fate's chance wrecking ball, lays scattered on a table, purposely sprawled out over meaninglessness.

Still doesn't make sense?? Lemme explain some more.

My March is still deliberating whether to call itself Melancholy March or March Good Moods. To be able to travel with friends and family, with those that nurtured you and have seen you grow is a blessing; (bonus points for well place semicolon!) to be able to share your life honestly and proudly with those you love spreads satisfying soft ripples of warmth through your body. I admit that i sometimes forget to stop and smell the beauty that abounds and patiently waits for appreciation; to consciously wake up every morning and make a decision to love myself and others; to lovingly embrace the luck of being born and being present here and now on earth and being able to journey through these fleeting moments of the divine with those that i love and care about. My dad, mark, and friend, yukari, were simultaneously gracefully placed post-its and relentless booted kicks to the shin that reminded me of the ever present peace that we too often deprive our selves of. nevertheless, in that small comfort of the hermit's shell, i still can't hide the fact that i feel like i'm in a perpetual state of hanging over the precipice of drowning in my own breath.

it seems that my relationship with Yuko that started 7 years ago has come to an abrupt halt. apparently my mind is as blind as my eyes cause I had no sense of it coming, and all that remains is a failed table cloth trick where the table cloth that adorned and gently bebedded all my dishes was taken away and everything on top spilled, spoiled, smashed and scattered. It's something that breaks the heart but doesn't register in the mind. Such a weird feeling of believing in something to be so robust and solid that it could never end and one day reading an email that it just all crumbled... i guess i just got wall streeted, but at least i'm trendy, and it matches well with my trendy new thick framed glasses with Rhine stones in 'em.

It's also weird for me to write this in the blog, because usually i'm pretty private, but it was such a defining character of mine, and i don't feel like the same person. well i'm not. she was the thread that bound together my fractured and fragmented self, creating patchwork that no one else could. She made me whole and let me always be "it" to her ini mino mini mo. if i was anpanman, who's a japanese hero made of sweet bean bread, i totally feel like someone took a huge piece off and put it in the toaster and burnt it. what a waste... also, last night i had a dream that some bug was eating through my face and left a tunnel about the size of a pencil through my face. it was really bizarre and i didn't quite understand it, but maybe it meant that i've lost a piece of myself, and i have, and peace seems further away than ever.

so at current i feel completely distanced and abandoned from all that i care about. my work hasn't felt that meaningful, more than just my love, my life passion, my life soundtrack has gone silent and i've lost the rhythm of my life as each beat dully merges with the next. i've always tried hard to push myself but i'm really a timid, shy person and the only reason i've been able to accomplish what i have is because i knew that even if i fail at everything, i will still be important for one person and that gave me courage. Now i'm scared to open the door and let uncertainty come crashing in. Being in a foreign country with minimal social networks doesn't help either. confusion would be an understatement. my future just seems so uncertain, and i'm lost in a ocean with my anchor hopelessly lodge itself into the past. at current i'ma thinking of finishing my fulbright in mid-May, which would accomplish the minimum sixth months for resume purposes:) and head back home for a month for some soul searching b4 heading back to LA for some hardcore organizing, and reorganizing of my life...

for now, i guess i just gotta put on some Bobby M and put on my pants one leg at a time. It's a really dizzying moment because i really just experienced two extremes; simple and joyful happiness of exploring and journeying through unknown alleys and trails with those you love, and losing faith in the state of happiness through loss of one's love. I don't know how to express it properly but i really did depend on that person and to come back to you your room and realize it's completely empty is a heart freezing moment. i guess i just have to keep oning, believing in merrier days but right now it just feels like a test, and even if i pull an all nighter i feel like i'm going to fail. red bull, thy name is unsalvageability. so with the sweet taste that lingers in my mouth, i'll just have to accommodate the bitterness, and bittersweet talk my way to new days.

Nevertheless, here are some photos of good times at good places with good faces. even if my breath feels suffocating, hopefully time will liberate me...

From Ellora caves. Religious caves just carved out from mountains... Amazing devotion.















More carved caves from Ajant. Made over a period of a 1000 or years. I also went to the Taj Mahal but this was way amazing because it was no added resources. Just devotional crafts men and their hammer and chisel. And of course, my beautiful, hilarious and intelligent friend yukari. best travel companion in times of rough seas and in those of jumpy fun!

Me, my dad and my two aunties that constantly pet my head and call me "very nice boy." when i first arrived in the city, knowing no one and unable to navigate the foreign surrounding, they healed my soul with their 25 rupee (50 cents?!?!) all you can eat meals in their house. despite all our travels, ultimately i think we had the best time experiencing and sharing together a part of my life here in delhi, and that was a timeless experience.

I know everything is going to be okay, but sometimes it just feels more natural to soak in the hurt. But i'll be feeling that happy loving magic again soon i know.

Mama Said Knock You Out

Pa-Pah-ra-ra-pah paaaaaw! Wiki wiki. Mic check one two one two, somebody’s gotta help me tie my shoe! So after a somewhat prolonged typical ian MICA(missing in cyber action) I’m back! Which randomly made me think of this dude who I play pick up ultimate Frisbee here in delhi who likes to say “Don’t call it a come back!” which I’m assuming is from LL Cool J. But he could not be further from the truth as he makes me think more of a scraggly guy with a vaguely aussie accent with a parrot on crutches perched on his shoulder who you encounter on a deserted island that you’ve drifted ashore after your plane pulls a Hudson. Anyways, so yes, I’m back. And I will now start rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear, that is to say, I’m going to knock you out (huuuuuh).
So as promised, here is the lowdown on one aspect of my life that perhaps I should put higherup on Ian’s ever expanding hierarchy of to-dos and don’ts. Speaking of hierarchies and going on a tangent about psychology, and then segueing into a conversation of psychology and names that end in lov(maslov to Pavlov) there’s this food called momos, which is like a Tibetan dumpling that’s sold on the street everywhere and makes me salivate itchily just by seeing the red stalls. And I think to myyyseeelf(in the ending of “what a wonderful world style”) “Pavlov I feel you dog.”

I think I will begin this journey with what I’ve been doing and then transfer lines to what I’ve started doing and finally get off at what the next 6 months will potentially, but in reality most likely not, have in bazaar stall for me. Shall we?

Up to now the best way to characterize what I’ve been doing is making a pretty useless general statement of trying to get a foot hold in this ever changing landscape. But more concretely, I’ve been coming to the Navdanya office everyday and been doing random text fidgeting, preparation of some distribution material, website dusting and polishing and just all around all superstar level nodding and smiling at things I don’t really understand. In terms of the different atmosphere interns occupy in the world, I think I’m in the useful-enough-to-merit-the-seat-in-the-office-o-sphere. Usually what happens is V shiva comes in and tells me something that needs to be done, I smile and say yes, yes without really understanding, and two weeks later I finally produce the paragraph or print out that was required. But hold thy judgment Dredd. Considering that I have a task completion rate of .330, I am basically the Ichiro of the office (by right of batting average and not ethnicity that is (though the two may be inseparable)) and I am quite happy to bestow that title upon myself any day. But that is old news and but a shedded ian yesteryear. Today I am electric sliding to new horizons.

The new me, well actually the new me is currently trying to break through the 70% burden the old me left me, but in theory the new me is starting to rock at life and is starting his research project… finally(gasp!). What I hope to begin is a joint project of researching the political and social implications of different agricultural solutions to climate change by doing a comparison of traditional agricultural knowledge vs genetic engineering (or technofixes). This topic is significant because…

Navdanya, the organization I volunteer at, is going to build a campaign against seed companies and the 100s of “climate ready gene” patents that they have been stock piling. The challenge is that there is no inventive step in genetically modified organisms and does not improve upon the seed varieties that farmer’s have conserved for thousands of years, and the proliferation of GMOs go hand in hand with encroachment of intellectual property rights to new areas. This trespassing of IPRs and the privatization of seeds effectively represents the newest enclosure of the commons and would have grave implications to small scale farmers, thus to huge percentage of the world. So I would doing some interesting research work that may prove of use to someone outside of myself, AAaand satisfy my existential dilemma here, all the while being useful to the organization and hopefully in some miniscule karmic way, the world. So that is that my friends.

PS this took so long to enter, partly because I wanted to somehow inconscpicuously get a photo with V Shiva but couldn’t get the timing right. So I told her we should make a web page advertising for volunteers and need some photos. Cha-cha chiiiing.









Ian rockin the office clothes in an office setting. Did I hear a “Navdanya, how may I help you?” Wha Whaaaat. And can i hear a, "Sorry i don't speak hindi."

PPS The other day I realized I have a huge back log of ideas and front log of internal soliloquies, but the question now is how do I carpenter a cabin to house these thoughts.

PPPS just for the sake of FYIing, a lot of times, in fact pretty much all of my PSs are products of random inspirations and never actually written post script. Does this make me a liar? Well the latins weren’t the most truthful folk anyways so huuuh. It’s kind of like footnotes, but only PSing it. Like my guru says, Don’t BS, just PS.