Propelled By The Love of Poesy

is the title of a piece on me that appeared in the East African Standard newspaper today.

You can read it here.

Lines that made me smile:

the passionate artist, who seems to have thoughts on almost every subject

driven by a desire to understand the forces that rule the world

violently honest poetry that is sweeter performed than read

palm cravings

There's a soapstone sculpture in the Murumbi Collection at the Kenya National Archives. It's called Dream, by Elkana Ongesa.

Soapstone incites a kind of hunger in my hands. The smooth hard coolness of it is infinitely satisfying to touch. The quality of its surfaces - lustrous yet not shiny, polished but not reflective, can keep my eyes absorbed for hours.

I fell into this particular piece, Dream, the way you'd fall into a silky lake after a 5-mile hike in the sun. Couldn't stop stroking it, trying to memorize it with my palms, capture it in each cell of my fingertips. The friends with me began to laugh, and I was embarrassed enough to stop. But I could've stayed there for hours, just breathing it in, talking to it with my hands. I've never had an urge so strong to own a piece of art.

Today, just a few minutes ago, my hands remembered it. The way your tongue remembers a taste, the way your brain hears a piece of music. My palms are craving soapstone, thirsting for the particular curves and planes and hollows of Dream, every bit as strongly as my body has ever craved chocolate or coffee - or water.

Sunday Salon comes to Nairobi!

If I could clone myself, this is where my Nairobi clone would be on March 18th.....

A warm welcome to Sunday Salon Nairobi, Kenya!

The first ever Sunday Salon Nairobi will be held on March 18th, at 7pm at Kengeles, Lavington Green.

This salon sparks a series, which will be held every third Sunday of the month. Nairobi is the third city to take on the Sunday Salon series, after New York and Chicago. Sunday Salon founder and co-host, Nita Noveno, based in NY, is an alumnus of the kwani? Litfest, which was held in December 2006 in Nairobi and Lamu.

This inaugural Sunday Salon will feature Dayo Forster, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Muthoni Garland and Stanley Gazemba.

Once again, Kwani Trust will facilitate an exciting, innovative event for writers and lovers of literature. Sunday Salon Nairobi will cater to prose, allowing four writers to read their work in a garden setting enhanced by live music. This is reminiscent of the kwani? Readings, which grew in popularity to give way for the ever-popular kwani? Poetry Open Mic, held every first Tuesday of the month at Club Soundd.

kwani? (Kiswahili interrogative loosely translated as "what for" or "why") is a journal founded by some of Kenya's most exciting new writers and funded by Kwani Trust.

been thinking about belonging

and what that means. I'm suspicious of the longing to belong anywhere, because it always seems to require the drawing of lines. I belong here, which means, not there. I am this, which means not that.

When various communities claim me - Kenyans, brown Kenyans, progressive Indians, Asian Americans, Diaspora South Asians, the queer community, the Bay Area :-), Patels - it's both heartwarming and unnerving. The joy is knowing that my work is of value, that it feeds people. The fear is that the act of claiming is also a kind of investment, with expectations attached. That it draws lines around me, oversimplifies.

From Invocation to Durga, Dreaming In Gujurati)

Name the first hunger.
That of the belly and mouth.
Name the second hunger.
That of the heart for a home.
Name the third hunger.
That of the fingers to shape
what they touch; that of the hands
to imprint the world.

Name the final, deepest hunger.
That of the self we dare not name
to be without limitation:
leaf and stone, sky and bone,
fruition, destruction, a greed no smaller
than infinity.

My perennial question, for myself and others, is not
Where do you belong?
but
What do you do? In your work, in your life, in your daily actions and choices, what do you put into and take out of wherever you are? How do you draw on everything you are, all the ways you belong or don't, all the places and peoples and movements that claim or reject you, to be fully present in your physical time and space?

speed, signal strength, status

The stats for the wireless network connection on my sister's laptop. Absurdly and equally apt this morning for my mental state. The past week has been all about welcomes and farewells. I think about the web of people I'm connected to, across the world - speed of connection, strength of signal, status of relationship.

It's cold and wet in Bristol, at 7am. In 40 minutes, the taxi is due, to take me to the coach station. Coach to Heathrow, flight to San Francisco, BART to Oakland.

Going "back" to America sounds weird; "back" implies it's the place I started from. But I've been talking, for the past weeks, about when I come "back" to Nairobi. More and more, America feels like a way-station, a transit point.