Community and Tenderness
Dear reader,
Hello! I’ll start with talking about money. Four readers have paid towards my newsletter and I want to thank them. I’m hoping 246 more folks pay towards it too, so I can have some income through it. Click here to pay. If you are unable to pay, please respond to this email and I could send you another option. Anyway, I will keep this letter open to anyone with a free subscription but paying helps me. Also, if you like the newsletter, don’t forget to add a heart, share it with your friends, etc.
In this newsletter, I talk about what having a physical community does to one, there’s a comic on tenderness, there’s a poem and three announcements of events,
1. share a table with us: breaking bread with strangers in Bhendi Bazaar, this Saturday during Iftaar (we are looking for 5 more folks to join us , 2. Sunday, I am conducting an online zine workshop - A walk in my shoes at 4 m IST. (details below) 3. 30th is Van Gogh’s Birthday and I will be doing an online (11:30 am IST, We will make sunflowers) and offline session (4:30, Mostly starry nights for adults and sunflowers for children who accompany adults).
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Last year, I felt my friendships needed some restructuring. I was feeling drained, I felt I was giving and not getting much (apparently an anxiously attached person’s issue) and most of my friends lived in other cities and countries. I have always had this problem. I felt I needed to do things differently, so I started to write. One of the things I wrote then was the need of a physical community, virtual community, I have but I wanted folks I could do things with. And that I am seeing happening and it has been so enriching. It started with #ArtWithIndu, we went to watch a film - Varun Grover’s All India Rank and now we going for a community Iftaar this weekend — basically sharing a table with strangers or breaking bread with them. We are looking for 5 more people, so if this is you, come.
I will let you know how that went but right now I want to share some delightful moments from #ArtWithIndu.
I’ll start with the last one. It was a small group. Just 6 of us. See, I am always hoping 20 people make it to all of my events, so I make some money and this mental talk about being a failure stops. But having done so many sessions, I have come to a place to not shame myself when fewer people show up. I don’t feel like a failure. Getting over this shame is a big deal for me. Because each of these sessions give me so much.
So last class had one guy. He had never braided in his life. So I taught him to. He was wearing shoes, I said he could take off his shoes and hold the scraps of cloth in between his toes for grip, which he did. He was so curious and asked me a lot of questions. I don’t think he had ever threaded a needle but he was eager and willing and made a beautiful little rug. Curiosity is so validating for someone who is teaching, I told him — Braiding was a good skill to have and this:
Such tenderness. Every woman present there was moved. “OMG someone knew what a French plait was and they plaited your hair. So sweet.” Folks made tiny rugs for their mothers and grandmothers.
Tenderness reminded me of this. It is from a personal storyI wrote which I can’t otherwise share but as a sucker for tenderness, I’m sharing this:
Pic from Wikipedia
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Going back to our last session, after folks made their tiny rugs, four of us women hung out and talked about online dating, ghosting and being ghosted. One of the things we talked about is the pressure to see things in black and white. We discussed that some folks may violate us in ways that we don’t want to remember anything good we did together with them but with some other folks, we may get over the hurt and may still want to think of the good times we had together and we should do that. I really need to hear that.
Recently, I had two great dates with this lovely gent who later ghosted me. I was hurt and angry. But now that I am over the hurt, I want to share a poem I wrote about our second date. It is poetry very inspired by a poem that someone who came to one of the #ArtWithIndu sessions shared with me. The original is December by Michael Miller . I read this poem around the time I met this gent and I was so moved by both the poem and my experience that I lifted a few stanzas from the poem and wrote this:
February
Indu Harikumar
I want to be a pillion rider
On your scooter again
And wrap my hair in a scarf
So it doesn't get dirty
Helmet-less,
And yet unafraid
Unawkward, as I hold you.
Asking, "where do I place"
You guide my foot as you ride
"Cops!" We make a secret chase
The dusty highway we leave behind
And ride into our private life
I want to be a pillion rider
on your scooter again
and put my life back
in your hands.
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Folks who come talk about how relaxing the sessions are and how nourishing it is for their souls. I can see how. Because when we do any activity like art together, we lower our guard, we aren’t being in our heads, we engage without being procupine-y which is how we are otherwise to strangers. As a person conducting these, it is wonderful to watch different people feel safe to bring different parts of themselves to these sessions. Some bring poetry, some their stories, their presence, some bring food, some their grief. We usually hang out post the sessions and share a meal. It is that feeling of belonging without having to be responsible for everyone’s miseries. Which is why I love it so much.
Of course, I have so many ideas and want to take this to other spaces where I can make some money too. I am hoping I am able to conduct these sessions for couples, people who want to date, people who want to connect, for community building, corporates who want to relax because we all need to feel safe in the world and do stuff that helps us relax and be. Please recommend me to spaces where I could work.
Also, for online folks, I will be doing a session this Sunday, on collective zine making called A Walk In My Shoes. Do look at what we produced in a physical session. This will involve some self reflection through guided questions and then turning some of that into a page with some drawings. It will be a 1 and 1/2 hr session. It will be conducted by me at 4:00 pm IST on Sunday, march 24. For folks in India, it will be at Rs 500. Please write to me at indu14@gmail.com for payment details. For folks outside of India, it will be 15 $ and you can use my BuyMeACoffee to pay.
Also, don’t forget you can pay towards my work by paying for this newsletter.
<3
Indu
P.s.: March 30th is Van Gogh’s birthday, I will be doing an online session at around 11:30 and an offline session at around 4. Please keep yourself free and come. Online session, we will make sunflowers our style, slightly inspired by Van Gogh and in the offline session, you can choose between Starry Night and Sunflowers. I’ll share details about payment online through my Instagram.