Introducing Ficali McPipe

Age: 27
Gender: Female
Location: New York
Occupation: HR bod
Blog link: Sea Horse Chronicles

How did writing become your form of creative expression and what role does it play in your life?
It's something I've always enjoyed, even as a child. Being visually, musically and spatially inept, writing has always been my means to express myself. Words can be fun, and I enjoy the art of playing with them, albeit often with rather unsuccessful results. I guess it started in grade school, when I used to write poems of a ridiculously childish nature, and insist on reading them out to anyone who would listen. My parents, bless their hearts, found it in themselves to somehow convince me this was a talent and encouraged me to grow it further. If I'd been them, I'd have probably thrown those poems away.

Today, my medium for writing is my blog. I don't really use it to keep friends and family aware of the haps in my life, but rather as a means to express myself. Usually, the content is an exaggerated distortion of the truth it's based on, but it's important to me as my outlet for creativity, while at the same time allowing me to step back and retrospectively view my own life with a sense of humourous objectivity.

You have lived in Bombay, London and now New York? Where do you feel your sense of home?
It's a great question and one I've often asked myself in the past. Sense of home is not tied to geography for me, it's really a question of emotional attachment, I suppose as predominantly driven by the people I care about. As long as my parents continue to live in Bombay, there will always be a part of me that will think of Bombay as home. And the same for London, with the close friends I have there. But if I had to pick one, given how happy I am right now in New York, and given that I don't envision myself moving elsewhere anytime in the near future, I'd have to say this is home. I guess the acid test for me is, when I come home from a terrible day at work, or when I'm ill, at a psychologically vulnerable point, I don't yearn to be elsewhere. I'm happy, even relieved, to be home, and that's when I know this is really "home." Now, if only all my friends and family would be compliant and come live here in New York, I could give you a much more definitive answer to this question :)

A year ago this month, you walked past a diner in New York and saw a man who appeared to be Salman Rushdie eating eggs at your favorite diner. It made you think seeing him there was a sign. A sign of what?
Most of us, I think, are at risk of being lulled into a complacency by the quotidien routine of life. Often, I'm so busy rushing from one thing to the next, so focused on the objective, that I fail to notice the little things happening all around me on the way. So when something slightly out of the ordinary happens, however small, but yet significant enough to have grabbed my attention for that moment, I take it as a sign. Not a sign to portend great or terrible things to come, rather just a sign to me, because it's made me pause in my course of action, and alter my sign of thought. For haven't these moments ultimately, however infinitesimally, altered the course of your life in some way? In all honesty, I'm not even sure if it was Salman Rushdie I saw in the diner. But all the same, thinking I saw him there just brought home to me the specialness of the place, and the central role it continues to play in my life.

How do you feel about Rushdie's writing and the controversy surrounding it?
I admire Rushdie's writing greatly. I certainly haven't ready all of his books, but both "Satanic Verses" and "The Moor's Last Sigh" left me with a sense of awe. He's an extremely talented writer and definitely deserving of the accolades he received. In my opinion, the controversy surrounding his writing is not different from that surrounding any strongly opinionated political or religious work, and while the reaction (especially to "Satanic Verses" I believe) is perhaps inevitable, he's ultimately only exercising his right to freedom of speech.

Who are your favorite writers?
I'm not sure if I have favourite writers, per se, as much as favourite works from a variety of authors. To highlight a couple of my absolute all-time favourites, I'd have to pick Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) and Nobody's Fool (Richard Russo). Most often I tend to stick to character-driven novels, which may even have little to no plot, but which express the depth of the multi-faceted human character truly like a work of art. I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb) is a great example of this.

In an entry on mental mapping, you wrote in September 2005, "With so much changing in my life around me, I find that more marked now than ever. Every once in a while, I have to pause and check in with myself, take stock of where I was, where I am, and where I'm going. And sometimes, my maps change so rapidly I feel like I'm caught in swirling waters, losing track of who I am." Do you think we get a clearer understanding of who we are as we grow older, or do we simple continue to add to the mental map?
I wrote this entry in a Kerouac-ian moment of philosophical inspiration, but I can't say it's a particularly wiser insight than most people probably do anyway, at some intuitive level. The concept of mental maps is the simple, life-old concept that we are continually influenced by our experiences in the world around us. I do believe that in the case of most people, this gets less as you grow older, mostly because a lot of the significantly life-altering choices have already been made, and life paths have already been embarked upon. So it's just a matter of one's sphere of daily experience getting narrower. This must lead to a clearer understanding of, if not who we are, then at least where we are in our lives. Having said that, I certainly don't believe that a person's capacity to adapt, change, and evolve along with the course of life diminishes with age - in fact I've seen much evidence to the contrary. I personally hope, and intend, to continue expanding my world of experience, and continue evolving with this irrespective of age.

Your native home of India is much different today than the days of your parents. What is better and what is worse, in your opinion?
I'm hardly qualified to give a thorough answer, though, like most bloggers, I'm happy to posit an opinion :). India has opened its markets to the global economy over the last decade or two, and this has had tremendous impact on the overall career, growth and lifestyle opportunities people there can now afford. It has opened a world of choice to people across the socio-economic levels, and this is a dramatic improvement for such a large society to go through over such a relatively short span of time. However, the greatest benefit from this lies not in the materialistic opportunities this presents, but rather the expansion of thought, awareness and a cultural open-mindedness which could only be achieved through a genuine inter-education of intellectual ideas in the world environment. This change, a more gradual one but far more powerful, manifests itself across the various spheres of life, from increased social liberalism, to environmental conscientiousness, intellection expansion and an encouragement of individual freedoms - and this, I see as a tremendous improvement from the times even of my own childhood.

I genuinely can't put my finger on what might have gotten worse (although I'm sure there are things which should be listed!), other than possibly pollution and congestion, which are natural products of population increase and I would hardly list them as specific to India.