Sirji-- Mr AB wished me on my bday...amazing.. speechless..

http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/post/32539576583#disqus_thread

Sept 2011- Sept 12 : An account

Wrote 111 story+ verse (not including rewrites)

Subbed to 59

Got acceptances from 15

Watched: two plays, innumerable movies

Visited: Lalbaug Ganpati (2011), GSB Ganpati (2012), Durga Puja (Ramkrishna Mission)

Kabir Concert at Bandra,  Shabnam Virmanis’s Kabir concert at Ramkrishna Mission, Kaluram Bamaniyaji’s Kabir Concert at Chaupal

Trails: Jambulmahal (partly), Bhimashankar, TAW Mahakali, TAW Dharavi NP, TAW Silonda, TAW SGNP2, BNHS Nagla

Yesterday was the seventh day visarjan of Ganpati Bappa .

And I think he was watching over me. And Miss Blue.

Else how would we have crawled home last night—yes, crawled.

First gear, amidst chanting and dancing crowds and trucks with the deity… all clutch brake clutch and nasty nasty traffic, wedged sandwiched between TWO huge BEST buses, and the percussion from those steel drums next to my ear and blaring film music….

30 minutes of waiting on a road that’s usually done in eight.

Sat quietly for ten minutes after reaching home.

Some of these songs we used to sing when the lights went out, and the lights used to go out quite often those days I think…so many from Gandhiji’s Ashram Bhajanawali… one in particular, man mast hua phir kyun boley.. I heard after ages like really ages, only the tune this once is so different, it has the mehak of the earth… this I will try overlay over the previous version that is embedded in my mind, that has the voices of all of the dear ones who inhabit another plane now…wonder how the kid, my virtuoso show off  would have sung this one..

Went to my friend D’s house for Ganpati darshan, and oh la! thought I was running vv late but just in time for the naivedya.. and what a fantastic location, a HILL behind their house, imagine!

A lovely surprise…Panna Naik’s mint fresh book of verse…Gulmohar thee Daffodils on my desk this mid morning… fantastic—what a gift...she didn’t tell me!

Hallelujah...fasting and pp sugar levels I can live with... phew! was worried on account of the rains and no walks. Not under a hundred-- have forgotten what that felt like.

Just back from a splendid concert.
Shri Kaluramji Bammaniya from Malwa presented Kabir Bhajans.
Thanks to Chaupal and The Kabir Community of Mumbai.
His young daughter, Arpita also accompanied him.
i took photos. And in the fitness of things the best sound recording features my sleeve.. did not know the camera was on... sheepish.
Amazing experience... the kind that gives you goosebumps.

This is a beautiful time of the year

Lights twinkling by the roadside

Hymns and prayers in the air even if they blare non stop

The rains have taken a break for a while

Ganpati processions.

Crackers

Smiling people

And above all, the percussion beat of the Dholi

Yesterday I scurried around town visiting friends who had invited me for darshan.

Borivali- Dahisar- Thane-  Andheri E in a matter of hours, yes the roads were blissfully empty.

My friend V took me for GSB Ganpati darshan this morning. Amazing. Serene.

I feel blessed

RIP Dinesh Thakur.
What a presence. Too many plays to mention.
You held the Prithvi audience in the palm of your hand.

I’m glad I got over sloth yesterday morning and went tree watching. On a trail that is so unknown that I shall not name it here. A quiet forest path as it should be, just the birds trilling and leaves rustling. Saw rare gems—Jyothishmati, an endangered climber. Coral mushroom. Glory Lily. Drank in the smell of the forest, with like minded folk.

Not that I’m ever going to wear those clothes.

(salwar Kameeze’s are a fantastic camouflage. And I’m firmly in the Aunty age group. And enjoying it)  

Or style–blow dry my hair to frame my face. Oh la!

But Soha Ali Khan and Aki Narula on TLC are very, very good.

And “What not to wear India” is smart, sassy and oh hell such a shot of hope.

You have to look at the befores and afters to believe in a Fairy Godmother. Seriously.

(The Hans Cristen Andersen kind, just to clarify). 

What total transformations. You can see the spring in their steps, the glow in their eyes, and tak-tak of their shoes.

And at ten in the night one thing I do need to round off my day is “Hey this is good!”

Yesterday I did a translation, Hindi- English after AGES.

It felt so good to immerse in the words, to pull at the gray matter for close equivalents.

I was driven—after long. Impassioned.

In one of Pravinsinh Chavda’s stories, I think A String of Words, there is this line about a man in a dusty library, surrounded by piles of books he’s researching…the lines say how his face bore the sweat-lined pride of a farmer surrounded by his flourishing crops… this I can understand when I return to translations after a while.

Sahansheelta= fortitude/ forbearance/ tolerance?

Realised how some words can only have wishy washy equivalents, or cannot be shifted across tongues, the cultural underline is too strong… In our culture, putting up with something, adjusting to, withstanding something for long periods is a virtue.

Perhaps in the west it is not, rebellion is strength? The closest word someone suggested was endurance. Doesn’t seem to have much of a positive quality about it, in my opinion.

Today I walked in the sunshine
Step after step after step
Can there be a greater pleasure in life?

On Sunday I had a friend over for tea. Yes, sugarless tea- no sugar jar in my house.

Put it down to Saturn transit or whatever-- these days I learn a lesson a day.

Some happen to me, on some I’m an observer, my eyes fall out. Or its extended family stuff and I learn new things oh really! and hard edges about kith and not so kin. So the lesson this once was—its one thing being alone. Tis another thing altogether to be alone with no money, zilch, zoomba and ground zero. As in owe on your credit card, your friends, have your electricity cut off, have a year’s dues at the grocer AND your personal life in shambles.cause in a span of a year your bf has walked out and your grown up kids are on their own trip and have left.

What a lot the Good Lord loads sometimes. 

Why?

Yesterday was a day of much mortification. Such horrendous shame that I almost fell off my chair. Stared for hours at a wall, suchlike. So, I’ve goofed up. Bigtime.

I deal with double digit inflation every time I buy groceries and balk. The social support system, such as it is, is in tatters. Health insurance is non existence, and even if you’re terribly prudent, covers paise on the rupee as I’ve learnt.

So all this while I was comfortable- there was always Mister Market. In my part of the world we count on Mister Market. Who helped put me and the sister through school and  music class and college? Mister Market. Who helped even out cash flow, spend on that not-so-fancy-but-costs vacation? Mister Market. Mister Market was the savior when the index was sub-1000’s, when one had to take a bus to the broker’s office at the other end of town, when orders had to be phoned in to Ahmedabad or Bombay.

So yes, Mister Market would salvage my old age, whenever old age nods and clears its throat. Mister Market ALSO helps me earn a wage, ok?

And then. Yesterday I calculated the CAGR of scripts in my portfolio.

Line by painful line. Some of the sure calls have been terrible. Not nice at all. Huge splashes of red all over the page. A lac (or several) shrunk to a few thousands.

The country’s leading engineering company – with a return lower than a bank deposit, taxable.  Some scripts are swimming along fine, even burdened by deadweight. Logical thing would be to chop out the sludge, deadwood and cleanup, add more fuel to the ones surfing along fine…Then why the hell can’t I?

Yesterday’s set of meetings were at the fanciest new hotel in bkc.. OMG but what were they thinking… décor was abominable… out of a french bordello, boudoir or worse.  Gleaming, gilded lamps, overdressed windows, a GILDED b&w supposedly art deco print for a head board, and a whole lot of gleaming: gleaming wood, gleaming tiles, gleaming marble, gleaming onyx., gleaming fittings, gleaming glass fronted bathroom rendered unusable… fat, opulent and best the money can buy—but money cant buy taste. The guest and I took ten minutes tearing the room apart.

yesterday it rained. And rained and rained. A nonstop, vehement clamor from the skies, mist and rolling clouds obscured the distant apartments. BMC and the police did an excellent job, but nature is nature and listens to no rules, so in due course subways/low lying areas/ train tracks were flooded, and yet again the slightly fractured spirit of Mumbai dusted its hands, pulled itself up and did what  had to be done. The next morning it was life as usual. Now part of the metro's - a pillar, a column-collapsed even as it was being built.

I’ve slowly come to realise aha Eureka! That I’m not as nice a person as you’d think I am if you met me. That I have claws. That I can be rude if I want to, and so often I want to, and I do. Sometimes subtly, sometimes elegantly, and more often than not, whatever. Whatever works. And that I don’t particularly care what you think of me. Maybe there was a veneer before. Maybe there wasn’t. I don’t even know what set off this ramble. Maybe the viral thing shut off the politer part of my brain. Or maybe the antibiotic and all the hot water, yes? Maybe its just the weather. Maybe this is, but this is true.

Hidden in the deep stack of n'papers perused: Begum Samru. What a tale.

AND, the Garden of fools. 

Kindly google.

Enough of offers to promote the blog.
Enough of offers to sell me discounted medication of all rainbow colors.
Enough, already.