Farzana Versey's Blog
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Nov.07.2008
The other day I was faced with an unusual remark: “You don’t look like a divorcee.”
This was a hip woman who had seen enough of the world to be eligible for emotional qualifier miles.
I did not know her well enough. Someone had just introduced us and in passing mentioned my ‘status’. She had given...
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Nov.05.2008
All she wanted to do was lie close to me and fall asleep. I cared enough to want to share bits of her life, her walks, and her falls. I just could not give myself. Even with the distance, I felt it would be wrong to lead her on.
We had never met. I have still not understood: why me? She empathised...
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Nov.04.2008
Dust and soot greeted me on my return. I could have pitched a tent. My gypsy self came back...to what? It had been a longish time away from home.
I ran my fingers over the table top. A tiny film of black stared at me. The portion where I had run my finger was now bare glass; I could now see...
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Nov.03.2008
Once, when I discovered some people finding it difficult to comprehend a poem I had written, it set me thinking. At that time a line had come to mind: His shadow loomed over my naked body.What could this mean? Several things, mainly the obvious. But for me it was a simple reality...I was in the...
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Oct.31.2008
Pierce the skewer into me
Place me wholeIn the barbeque pitTurn me overTo sizzleVeins ruptureGlow a deep pinkAs fire burnsBrowns meBring me outJuices intactA smoky scentRents the airPour the sauceOver my bodyCarve out large chunksWith a serrated knifeSlice a pieceEatLipsTurn crimson with meYou chew...
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Oct.30.2008
I have this strange desire to lose my way. Whenever we are going anywhere and suddenly the person with me forgets the directions, I feel a great thrill.
Years ago when I was dating my ex, I remember how he panicked when we landed up in some obscure lane. I wanted to dine at a Chinese restaurant in...
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Oct.29.2008
Why is Ms. Palin being made out to be a bimbo when everyone else is in the process of selling themselves as well? Had I been a US citizen it is most certain that I would not vote Republican, but I find the treatment given out to Sarah quite distasteful.
How many American feminists have raised...
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Oct.24.2008
I sometimes tell people that I am setting them free. It sounds silly, for the 'bondage' that some of us experience is what gives us a sense of roots. I have gone through so many emotions in these days that life seems incomplete to encompass all that I have to say, feel, give...
The other day, I was...
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Oct.23.2008
Mental exhaustion. My Inbox bored me. Friends were being kind; acquaintances were sending me the usual forwards – jokes, pictures and links to YouTube videos, which I have no interest in.
Then in the Bulk folder I saw all those unattended to emails. I was visiting them after months.
I like spam....
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Oct.18.2008
Patches have appeared again
They say it is the rainsMaking my walls weepIn the blotches I see eyesWith mascara running down their cheeksI touch the black marksNothing sticks to my fingerEven stains do not linger
I wish the walls would find another homeAnd leave me aloneA few showersAnd they turn...
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Oct.17.2008
I wouldn’t be as pat as Fidel Castro. The former Cuban President thinks it is a “pure miracle” that Barack Obama has not been assassinated as yet, despite the deep racism that exists in the US. “Millions of whites cannot reconcile in their minds with the idea that a black man with his wife and...
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Oct.15.2008
The White Tiger wasn’t a bestseller. It was moving slowly, which is strange for fiction. In Mumbai, as in most parts of the world, people like stories. What the book had was reviews, lots of them. Indian publications. International publications. Award juries look at these. They want views of people...
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Oct.14.2008
"Okay, so have you ever...(he made a movement with his fingers on his wrist to ask whether I had ever slashed myself)?"
"No. I love my hands...arms...too much."
Sometimes I wish I had only them.
Disjointed.
A string of cheese from the pizza sticks on the chin like frozen froth....
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Oct.11.2008
I have a problem with this ‘exile’ thing. Of late, some people have been asking me whether writing has to belong to a certain place, where and how.
The best I can hope to do is reproduce a large extract of this piece that may have some answers and many more queries. The controversy surrounding the...
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Oct.10.2008
The Nobel has landed in the French lap. Writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has won the 2008 Prize for Literature.
The citation lauds him as the
“author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”
Huh? Are not all...
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She writes with anguish and pessimism, a journey into hearts of darkness with no light at the end of that distorted prism, mainly because as she astutely observes, “every few years Pakistan writes a new fiction” to keep the embers alive. ”
—India Today
About Farzana
To be categorised is near-death. It would be nice to say that one is a literary vagabond, but it just does not convey fully the sense of rootlessness and ruthlessness one strives for constantly.
Have written opinion pieces, feature articles and interviews for...
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Farzana’s Favorite Books
Every writer, besides the ones I have listed, who has had something to convey that leaves me with the taste of bitter chocolate...that I like.