Thoughts of a minibus traveller

'Smoking Area : We respect your choice' is the sign up and it seems that everywhere is a smoking area.  Smoke kinds of choke me. A woman is there, lighter, pack. Smoking. We have a mutual acquaintance. We end up gaffing long after the acquaintance has gone.  One cigarette after another. She asks me to stay. Amazing stories. She then asks ' Can I trust you'? . I say no, no please do not trust me. She is surprised at my answer. She then tells me the secret as she blows the smoke away in a direction away from my face. Pictures on the phone. She asks my story in incisive ways so I cannot not answer really and maybe the smoke in the dim light must be some kind of screen or not. I listen through the smoke though and try to breathe in from somewhere else. Strangers , but it is easier to trust strangers . Even those who say please don't. A man drinking alone and smoking.  When I used to drink, we had a thing that no man should drink alone and do a token thing of h...

Stop Rape  on the 25th November and thoughts all over about the progress made and unmade . Hearing  men say that Mr Hicken should not have apologised because he was trying to say that women should dress decently and he was only trying to help women.  Guyana's moral crisis apparently is about how women dress rather than how men behave.  Hearing this from places which are surprising and not surprising. The desire to control women's bodies seems more than the desire to prevent rape. And the talk about rape and violence against women becomes a cover for saying 'violence is bad, but if you behave better , that would not happen to you' Plenty apolgies around the world to 'people who might have been offended'.. Don Lemon the black gay CNN News Anchor who 'As a victim, should known better ' when  and the white DJ from the BBC  and the Jamaican senator former Attorney General whose 'sackcloth and ashes' apology is ridiculous . In Guyana, the At...

Wake up and body is stiff and sugar is 120. Surya namaskar is painful but some celebration after two days of not doing it, it feels good to get through.. though the litheness. A mental note to take diclofenac because it is going to be a busy week. Busy morning in the kitchen. A request for information comes in and another and another and it is good, one is a bit complex to reply to but some coherence is given. Going market and not buying the fried mid-morning road side.. walking past the delicious puri and fish cake and the salt fish and bake after eating oats in the morning... Buy banana and orange and think good value. Restlessness, cravings.. and second walk into the area again.. I do not know how addicts feel or how withdrawal symptoms are.  And I go and I buy two (small packs) of Festival Strawberry thinking of the former loved one who liked strawberry and who I used to gift strawberry to.. and recrero for the fake chocolate. I fool myself into thinking that it is ...

There were two hours of in between and I picked up a book of poems gifted by a friend of the poet, put that down, then picked up the old second hand copy of Tess of D'Urbervilles and put that down and went looking at the book shelf without really looking.. with mind on other things like when the water would go down in the yard and the cleaning afterwards because the longer the water is stagnant the worse is the cleaning and all the other things which if displaced would give space for being entertained . Reading requires focus and concentration. I remember in the 1997/1998 elections janjhat when we were home a lot, I read out Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. Mind was different then for some reason, easier to read then. People moan and groan about how people are not reading and I wonder if it is that too many people have to seek quick fixes and cannot concentrate for too long because their minds are on other things.. and it does take long to get a fix from a book. And now...

Someone who married send me a text to ask about seeing me nude and it is the kind of person who if I had less indecency I would have said yes, but something in my head about adultery but the texting back and forth if seen could probably have me trying to prove hard that I respect the institution of marriage and that I am not a home wrecker. Another message from a married person that they look at me and wonder if things could have been different if I was the spouse. I delete that quickly. Another person in a phone conversation talks about wanting to take a gun and shoot up in one of the government agencies not Two email messages from me resulted in two spouses of loved ones (former loved ones?) being upset and angry. One spouse forgave me. I do not know the other spouse and doubt I will ever do. The new media and technology - emails, phone conversations.. how to talk privately while imagining that it could be recorded and shared publicly? When people who talk privately about t...

Listening to love music on the bus and then remembering journeys taken to see loved ones and thinking of the things I did for love/like/lust .. one of the joys of being and wanting to remain happily single is being able to fall in like/love/lust without any expectation of relationship but having connections which work.. but  even being happily single, when the connections are severed for whatever reason there is still sadness.. 1. Read First loved one liked Marcel Proust.. had the whole collection of works. I never read Proust.  I have read draft essays, emails professing love and frustration at the distance and chat messages and text messages and books sent my way on topics which had no interest before I fell in love.. and reading only one chapter of the book or reading the whole book and being surprised that I like it.. and keeping some books because of the notes in them from people long gone .. and also falling in like/lust/love with people who do not like readin...

Nice dim morning and the first mango again looks nice . Energy is low, and no mental energy to organise the messed up body to do the yoga which had been a part of the survival routine . A day's tasks ahead which require focus and concentration. Take a look at the mango and think whether to go downstairs and then decide to go down. The mango is not ripe yet but it has bird pick. Turpentine mango. If it was ripe I would have eaten the bits which the birds and the ants had left back. Mango positioned on the pile of dry grass. Take a picture of it to write a blog about lessons learned. 1. Detachment is not the same as withdrawal  Hindu philosophy is full of detachment from desire and the results of actions. The mango would have been nice but it was not there and the ants are eating it. No sorrow felt at the loss of the juicy mango at breakfast, no joy felt that at least the first mango falling from the tree this season is given back to the animals around. It is easy to ...

The bright young woman went on a social media tirade against the madness of the PPP , not caring who saw. The bright young man who saw, who had worked for the PPP for the 2011 elections asked whether there was anything young indian professionals could do. In the gaff it was clear that younger black people and others were trying their best, different things. I took that to mean  chatree coolies who might want to adopt the chatree position of dealing with injustice rather than silencing those who trying to deal with the injustice you perpetrate. Another young coolie man who had worked in 1992 but did not vote in 2011 but with whom the last conversation I had was that it was best to hold to local government elections so that the PPP could give back Georgetown to the PNC so that they 'could mess it up' and then everyone would see that the PNC could not manage the mess like how Hamilton Greene failed to deal with vendors and so.  He had told me when facing the injustices bef...

The 8 year old  picked up a brick and said  "I am going to kick this all the way home".. "and make a new pile" .. "you will see".. And so the walk home is slowed a bit with all the.. "watch out, look de car,", "look dis teking too long, i aint got time", "lef de brick nah man," with responses which were in the tone of  'No.. I am determined, I will get this home'.. "Kicking brick" has many meanings apparently including wasting time. But something though when the brick is finally placed on the pile at home triumphantly.  He then said it would be awesome if he had to push a rock home. Managing mental health means kicking brick like this, setting up useless tasks and then getting them done.  It is not clear which comes first, the  physical health or the mental health. It is difficult to focus on mental wellness when the body is not moving to generate the serotonin needed. While there is gratitude...

A woman , a man and another man asked if I was out on the road protesting. Another man want a meeting of peace makers. Plenty people calling me a sheep because I not burning nothing down. Another woman waiting to hear if black people gun go in coolie people shop in Regent Street (I wanted to tell her that there are more chinee people than coolie people shop in Regent Street these days ). Another man hoping that instead of burning down the place, that leaders could find nicer ways of protesting.  Other people want to know what other people doing - religious organisations, academics , civil society and so.. but not bothering too much with what they doing. Some people carrying on with normalcy. 1. Know what you want Know what you want means deciding in all the various agendas out there, what exactly do you want? I didn't vote in 2011. I learned in 2003 during the gay rights debate about how messed up the parliamentary system was once the real 'majority' tek ove...

A woman asks 'please for some ideas, new ones, not the regular kind of talk things and could I get it soon for the budge' . Another woman asks' the website is jaded, it needs an uplift.' both asking at times when creativity is difficult . Another request for a different kind of training session and another request for a presentation which will require research and creativity. So all this new things to get done, but the old laptop which had been down for 18 months or so.. in the mental health thing.. trying to patch and fix.. some irony in that the operating system is called Bodhi Linux . Keypad is damaged but a celebration that the old thing works is some kind of metaphor for rejuvenation. This with the ironed clothes, the packed wardrobe, the organised bookshelf..   I have this flaw in believing that I could fix everything and keeping things to be fixed. I mend my clothes, rough stitches and refuse to dispose of any stained clothing believing that once it c...

The man asks what the plans are for 2015 and I cannot really answer as I am planning daily and replanning. There is something about how the mind races through things which could be done.. kind of manic, but the body just wants to stay still.. and the various aches which might be brought on by the anxieties do not encourage any kind of movement. There is ironing to be done, postponed a week now and the clothes are wrinkled now. Something about the futility of ironing.. clothes ironed, they get dirty, they get washed, wrinkled, and have to be ironed again. Some tasks which are high priority get done.. bathing, brushing the teeth, cooking, eating, eating more, singing Ramayana at the mandir. Low priority tasks like exercising, cutting back on the food , planning a healthy diet and cooking it remain in the head. Some days you look forward to events and then you think you can go, and then the time comes and it is easier to just sit and do nothing, and not go. Other times it is okay...

1 . I watch de Newspaper ads and de facebook page..an' it was scary how much more Guyanese in Guyana celebrating Halloween. I mean.. is not like we used to do it and I don't know if de money mekin wid de costumes and decorations Made in China or what. Is not like Christmas or Diwali where people used to mek Homemade decorations and Diyas mek from mud. I mean.. anybody did pumpkin get buy out? 2 . A man call an tell me Halloween day dat he get invite to a White Collar Gay party . A donor did tell me dat dere were concerns dat white collar MSMs not getting enough information HIV/AIDS and dat de local Human Rights NGO seh dat is best ot have a nice exclusive event for dem because dey would not go anywhere where low class antiman would be.  And Public Health seh apparently dat you have to meet your vulnerable populations and so.. and apparently de Hurman Rights NGO ask fuh dis and so class prejudices are reinforced (de man wan fuh know is how he get classify as a white collar ...