Rangoli outside the labs

yesterday we celebrated Dusshera puja at work. Wonderful to see the girls in their festive best.
the color was pink, and I had to scrounge though my cupboard to sort of mix and match.

My grandfather, a village doctor, was ambitious for his sons--which is probably why I’m not waiting in queue to draw water from a village well today.
My tribute to my grandfather, Beholden, has been published in a nonfiction anthology, Real.

http://pureslush.webs.com/atasteofreal.htm

REAL

31 writers are featured in essays on life, love, sex, food, art, the future, history, travel, doctors, family ... and more!

Revealing the truth in all its guts and glory!

Featuring the talents of Gessy Alvarez, Cheri Ause, Meghan K. Barnes, Layla Blackwell,Laura Bogart, John Wentworth Chapin, Rebecca Chekouras, James Claffey, Joanna Delooze, Mira Desai, Gloria Frym, S.H. Gall, Cinda Gibbon, Walter Giersbach, Jane Hammons, William Henderson, Gill Hoffs, Claire Ibarra, Joanne Jagoda, Maude Larke,Michael Gillan Maxwell, S.B. Phoenix, Matt Potter, Mark Rosenblum, Shane Simmons,D.M. Simone, Jonathan Slusher, Sharon Louise Stephenson, Thomas Sullivan, Susan Tepper and Diana J. Wynne

Saptami puja at Ramkrishna Math, Khar

Yesterdays color was orange.

Soneri is orange, is it not?

Dazzling golden, fine spun.

Yesterday I was privileged--sat right at the feet of the mother at the Saptami puja at Ramkrishna Math, Khar.

Soneri is the color of the dhaki, and the maddening drum beat that sets your blood cells whirling.

Soneri is spun gold, the color of dazzling light on sea waves at the beginning of creation.

Soneri is the might of young mountains breaking free of the ground, coming to life

Soneri is the sunlight, touching the first trembling leaves in untouched first forests.

Soneri is the color of teardrops glistening on my eyelashes as the hymn comes to an end.

RIP Yash Chopra sir.

Death spares no one--but the city puts one to shame.

Dengue decimates in the priciest areas of town

grey seas, NP

Today’s festival dress color is grey. But there is no way you can wear the grey of uncertainty, or of grey skies,  or hazy grey lines. When I hunted for pictures I notice grey stands out only if there is color or texture to contrast. I shall think  instead about swirling mists and the sheen of grey pearl, and the grey or a rose-tinged dawn.

agave. its tip as sharp as a shrew's tongue

These festival days are supercharged, something dazzling about the light...Today’s dress code color is green, the green of dark forests, the green of light from the other side of a leaf, many hued generous splendid green, from pista to jade emerald.

Though I must admit being more familiar with the green tinge of envy.

Slumzilla past the colony wall lives exuberantly and spoils me for choice --disco garba remixes to the left and traditional garba that I can sing from memory, to the right. Ah, life!

The bauhinia are in bloom.

Nestled in Sunday’s paper was a flyer from Creative Handicrafts, an organization that works with slum women to teach them means of livelihood. Ordinarily, I abhor shopping, specially the mall variety, and operate with little free time, hence the preference for single-store purchase and experimentation with bagittoday. But this sounded good, and so it was. 

kurta detail, change purse

cutwork bag detail

Creative Handicrafts is aided by the local parish, the Sacred Heart, which has been around since this part of the suburb was dense forest, and I have heard tales of cheetahs lolling in the church compound, then it wasn’t slumzilla and post industrial, though the ancient, 1st C? Buddhist caves must have been there. The sale was very good, and the range of clothing and bags/ folders/ cases superbly designed, specially the block printed work and the embroidered shirts. They work using modern machines, and give a fair wage to the women from the surrounding slums
.Apparently most production is exported, and they sell locally what is left over. They also offer a range of jams, folders/purses, soft toys and shoes at a shop just off Mahakali Caves Rd, near Maruti School, also near Bhangarwadi. I reached via a meandering shortcut via the shanties past the Church but I wouldn’t recommend that unless you like exploring  shortcuts, like I do.
ps: this afternoon I took my friend V there. Was blessed! Met Sister Isabel. now 86, who began this effort fifty years ago. She still had a sparkle in her eyes, a proud honorary Indian.

Mother Mary blessed my friend P’s home on Sunday. Her home was freshly painted and decked up with flowers for this all important guest. But the first time I went to her home in the distant west, I was too early, had mixed up the time—so after my usual Sunday prayers at the temple, I went again to pay my respects, even the rickshawalla said, "Darshan adhoora nahin chodna chahiye..." Serene! I have a special connect with Maai.

At the temple in addition to the Vishnu Sahastranam, we’ll now be reciting Shri Suktam.for Navratri, rather Guruji will recite in his perfect Sanskrit and the likes of me will humbly listen, wondering in which lifetime will i learn this! Late last night they brought in Ambama’s statue in the shantytown past the wall, superb drumming and much festivity, lights twinkling late into the night.

Rant warning. I might have gotten myself into a standing battle royale with bagittoday, but I shall persevere, no matter that the return address is so far from Dilli it is halfway to Haryana, or where ever Bhatti village is. Ever gullible and on the lookout for an escape from mall shopping, I  took a deal offered on kurtis, and was sent possibly the smallest size despite asking for generous, big, large-- the tags were altered but they forgot to snip off the cloth tag that is sewn into the seam..

I have been thinking of legacies, inheritances. tangible (cash,assets) and intangible (values, outlooks, life priorities), and how they sometimes go beyond flesh and blood.

An elegantly fashioned clothes hanger crafted out of german metal,  with movable hooks, created in a time when such items were not assembly-line manufactured. The person who rescued it from the trash heap- raddiwalla was not a family member, and yet... somewhere the long gone would have been pleased. Very sad to hear of family heirlooms being trashed... at such times I remind myself that this is not exactly my family. It was good I stayed  away, I would have cried.

How many times must I have gone to the central Baroda  area called Mandvi, as a kid? I was a regular at the Central Library a few paces away, and one of my lasting regrets is having dutifully returned an early Dickens edition. Anything good, anything worthwhile in that city and you can be sure the wise King founded or funded it, eons ago. I was in the area over the weekend for some work, and was drawn by this working hospital. What wonderful work even if it needs sprucing up.

1972- 1991
Which ever lifetime you are in now, peace and joy little one, be well.

Delighted to announce publication of a story on Pureslush for their Virtualism theme:

http://pureslush.webs.com/payback.htm

OR

http://bit.ly/RbmqIy

That fantastic drumming and clash of cymbals as deities were taken for immersion. The peace of prayers, mindful of the conjunction of distant planets. Sitting quietly with a friend, hearing her life tale unravel. The shock of a teary birthday wish too late, and much too early in the morning—don’t know why, but I can guess—has anything really changed in the last twenty, thirty years? The scare of a nonresponsive external hard drive, much praying, long distance assistance, and eventual relief at a solution. Some resolutions for the new year, to free up and use chunks of time. Last year’s hit and miss was hallmark plodding mule, but cussed persistence is in my genes.

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.

So that post on the trip to the forest never got written.Much as I wanted to write about the BEST red bus materializing magically in the dark rain. Much as I wanted to write about the magic of the trail, quite unconcerned about one kind of grasshopper or another, happy to move far ahead of the group discussing this kind of leaf or that, just the path rich with the scent of the wet earth and the song of the water gushing and trees with room to grow and more.

So the post on the trip never got written and I was frazzled by the weekend criss crossing the bridge that connect the have-nots of the distant suburbs with TOWN, attending endless meetings speaking non stop. Pays the bills.

In the end it was the different kinds of air conditioning that got to me, cool to chill to very cold, though I should have guessed from my lethargy on Sunday, where I had to talk myself into my usual temple visit. Monday, one more conference and post midnight I think the fever was a hundred-two. Old dependable ayurveda- kadu, karyatu, sudarshan in a convenient tab form, Trishun. I spent the last two days in bed, using my sick leaves after ages. Yesterday morning when I awoke it was with immense gratitude for Baba and my grandfather, a doctor, who in some intangible form from another plane had spent hours sitting vigil, I could sense that. So many debts of gratitude.

So finally back at work today, though drained by whatever virus this is. No reflexes worth the name yet, so no driving, not on my road you don’t.

Anyway a ton of n’papers got looked at. And I had enough oats porridge to last a few weeks. Cant get any stranger. And Ferrari Ki Sawarii is very good.

Nagla. water over rocks, and the sound of green.

Yesterday in the park I watched a beautiful moth thrashing about in a delicate-as-lace -steel spider’s web. And I walked away.

I met the crow lady yesterday. A silver-haired Anglo-Indian with a penchant for cats and birds, including the beautiful baby crow perched on her shoulder. And immense bitterness—no faith in anything at all, not even an afterlife, not even a karmic balancing or life-lessons. So much so that my day seemed drained for a while, and I had to make an effort to return to my prior expecting-nothing state. I resolved to never be like her. Even choosing delusions or bitterness or angst or “rewards because you’re a good person” or victimhood is a choice, and one is always free to take a choice. Always.

Haven’t laughed so much in ages either. Put puzzles together with five year old D and my friend her mom—though I must admit Snow White got too much, with the seven dwarfs. The kid much too sharp for her age and fluent in three languages. All energy and brightness and hullagulla despite the fact that she has no usable teeth, and hence has been and will be on a paste-like diet till her permanent teeth grow in. Choice!

Have been working late for a bit so the decorated stage that suddenly came up by the roadside for Janmashtami just sort of registered on the memory fringe. So when I turned the corner past ten pm on Friday, I was flummoxed to find the road full of Govindas, at least a few hundred young men seated on the road after the day’s dahi-handi revelry. I was terrified and the lone lathi -wielding policeman was worried, but volunteers materialized out of nowhere, cleared a path for my little Miss Blue to navigate that sea of humanity, to the chorus of “Make way for Aunty ”.

Three of those men could have crushed the car in a second if they’d wanted to, but Mumbai is Mumbai.

Where are you from?

Where am I from?

How is one “from” someplace?

Can I be from two places?

Why? What to do, my loyalties switch between the home town and Big city bad lights.

In one, I grew up. The other made me grow up.

Why not?

Can I be from ten places?

What about the original village of family origin? Am I not from there? Some of the words I use, some of my attitudes?

How am I “from there” if I’ve been to that place for two days in all my life?

Then, what about the city of birth? The trademark bridge like steel lace joining the two shores…seen after forty some years, how can that be home? Or is the imprint on your genes for ever and ever?

Talking of genes, what about the community story, about the great migration from the temple city, from centuries ago? Does it stay on, does it play on, even if you’ve never been there?

Can I be from ten places?

So...Where are you from?

Have watched more TV news since Saturday afternoon than for the entire year.  Have stared at the tiger-pouncing raging waters of the Bhagirathi, its color a dirty brown, angrily surging ahead. Have watched the shots of the Ganga looking like a violent sea, breaching banks. Pushpavathi and Alaknanda swollen to many times their earlier gentle- stream sizes. Of all the tourists and pilgrims stranded on the highway for hours, stopped short by landslides. Hundreds rendered homeless in the cold. And those buildings toppling over like a piece of wobbly jelly.

When nature stops us short, we are NOTHING.

A few more hours and I would have been there, trapped in that chaos.

Thank you, Mister God.
Once again, I have been shielded, protected from havoc.

Flash floods in Uttaranchal.
My trip is cancelled.

Ok, so here we are! butterflies, mice in the pit of stomach, drumbeat pulse and all.

Trying hard to imagine what 14000 ft feels like.

Back after the 12^th, God willing.

Rain began as soon as the train pulled out of Baroda station, fine rain that left droplets on the huge picture windows, and later the downpour drenched the countryside in shades of green and caused impromptu lakes to reflect the skies, and instant streams to rush to wherever they were flowing to. Stations rushed by, and the sky was variations of slate to the horizon, unnamed trees  flowering in the distance, some bore new leaves. I stared till it was too late, although the book I was reading is pretty absorbing too—a magical new world built on snippets of our pasts. Must be one of the pleasures of life, reading to the gently rocking movement of a train. I’m quite liking Meluha, though I’d like to run a red pencil through the adjective OD.

The other day I googled and read something and was fairly troubled. If you place someone on a pedestal, admire their spiritual accomplishments, read and savor their words with patience and respect—and then learn something to the contrary, a blemish, a major character fault—it is upsetting, disconcerting to say the least.

No smoke without fire. If that makes me a nasty bitch, so be it.

And like Caesar’s wife, I expect someone to be purer than driven snow.

You may have once held my respect. Once.

But I’m afraid I don’t give away my discrimination. I will not. Not this or any other lifetime.

There was so much that one had conquered, so much merit that one had earned, why would someone operating on a presumably higher plane throw it all away for mortal ties? Biology? 

But at a stage as advanced, and a path as arduous but known since several centuries to be demanding—have the baser instincts not been burnt out, conquered to a meaningless state long long ago? Isnt this basic?

Is my filter wrong, am I judging too harshly, and who am I to judge?

If this is true and not the handiwork of a posse of deranged women, what else is true, and what is not true?

Why would someone throw away the earning of several lifetimes?

I’m calmer after watching the forest yesterday, the play of light and the cycle of destruction and new life.

The take home?

Better recognition of the pitfalls.

An increased sense of wariness.

A refusal to be “influenced” blindly—if this is ego, so be it.

Let me remember, even the sage Vishwamitra had been waylaid.

You sit on the edge of your chair, gawking, heart staccato, you stare at the precarious line of a road snaking up the high mountains. The world’s highest motorable road, the anchor mumbles. He’s short of breath. Nerves tingling. No  guard rails, no barricade, nothing.. over that edge and you’re nothing. The temperature’s minus ten, minus twenty..Boulders teeter held in place by invisible string, you’re riding first clutch and your machine gasps for air every revolution… you sit on the edge and thank the Gods you’re sitting in your living room, and you whisper Khardung La...

DO NOT MISS.

Perilous Journeys/ Criss Crossing the Himalayas/ Marsh Mokhtari….National Geographic Channel

There’s a YT clip as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRjdJ1L1oo

Yesterday I saw the ending shots of A Passage to India.

Must have been a super movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India_(film)

Why only the ending shots? I was waiting for Ram Kapoor to finally meet Priya, whom he believes is dead, but who isn’t. Amazing how this story goes on and on and on.

Finally decided to go on a tree-watch trail this weekend. 

Else I’ll get antsy and pack and unpack and repack.

Shabnam Virmani at the Ramkrishna Math in Khar.
Still echoing
**

Before I lose the essence, let me put this in clumsy words.

On Sat I trekked through the urban village shortcut and reached Khar in time for Shabnam Virmani’s concert. Accompanied by one back up vocalist and one percussionist, she held the standing room-only audience enthralled for two hours.

Her repertoire of Kabir bhajans crisscrossed the country. The Baul ballads of West Bengal where despite the language gap the meaning made you cry—and I don’t cry easily, not anymore. The songs of Malwa and Rajasthan’s hamlets carried with them the fragrance of the tilled soil and endless horizon. After the performance and the standing ovation, and past the notes of the music, there was a soundless place she took us all to, a place of silent echoes where words are immaterial

And this is the part I snipped out:

While walking through that up-and-down hill village (now a lineup of shanties and tumbledown homes) the sole and upper of my sandals parted company. Even as the heavens opened up. Found a content cobbler who repaired these instantly and was surprised at tipping—a quiet man who packs up by eight  so as to spend time with his family, and revises homework with his sons every evening—wants his sons to go to college.. A builder’s board for a redevelopment scheme has been up for five years, and well yes, they’d get more space in rebuilt flats.The home-grown air about the place would be lost... Once, leopards roamed these slopes where industrial units and fancy office blocks stand tall.

The ceiling of the vaulted meeting room was far higher than in modern structures, and the bookcase held volumes of leather-bound natural history journals dating to the early 1900’s, just past a plaque with the names of the eight founding members, circa 1883. The adrenalin surge got me going, propelled me past heritage buildings, as well as a  crush-packed-to- the-max local train ride, and then from the station making my way via two once-villages (gaothan) back to work…what I will not forget is the grins on a gaggle of kids being escorted back from school, maybe 7 years old or so and perfectly at ease in the crush, nudging and teasing and laughing.

If you hang on by the door, you get a glimpse of some beautiful trees.

Yesterday I took the bus! Forgive that exclamation mark, but I enjoyed the smooth ride, and the elevated view a BEST bus offers. Nowadays tickets are quite hi tech too,digital slips, none of the ticket-stubs of my school-college days.

And I finally got home the tulsi sapling from the temple, which I visited after the ritual mourning  period. This morning I had it potted at the park, and then placed in my tiny box window. I returned grinning from the park. I’ve made new friends--children who live in the nearby municipal quarters. We watched frogs and a lone tortoise in a pond.

Limitless is very good. Solid science to the idea too—if serotonin reuptake inhibitors are possible, this is possible as well. Smart pharmaceuticals.. wish I had thought of this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitless

Great essay, a take off on The Snow Leopard. Must find the book.

http://blog.contrarymagazine.com/2012/07/searching-for-the-snow-leopard-again/

The more I see, the more I read, and the more I interact, I see how critical it is to protect one’s own energies—a bounden first duty.

This delicacy of language

hints of subtext

restraint

Allusions and shadow

Lost in translation

The new form brittle, angular, brash

Like my words, wringing hands

words

That always fell short, no matter what

Now-- I can see that

“The hills! You must be going to some Ashram I bet!” the stranger scoffed.

“No…” I said, gesturing a walk.

Why is pursuit of the matters of the spirit looked down upon by “high” society—a choice of last resort, a time pass, something one pursues if one has nothing to “do” in life?

Mildly amused.

If my crisp work persona is what you see, good!

It is another matter that my God is the God of  the skies and hills and trees and rain and the whole world is his ashram--as also his play thing.

My moment of gut-punched epipany struck at the shop.  I was shown that shoe designed with perforated sides so that water could go through… returned home and watched as much as I could on YT. Swirling mists and craggy peaks. Keeping my fingers crossed and praying hard.
Whatever is willed.

Published!
http://flashesinthedark.com/2012/07/09/sandstone-with-gem-inlay-by-mira-desai/

This morning, after switching off FM announcing nonstop traffic/ storm at 7.30 AM, I randomly picked up a CD from Baba’s collection and heard a rendition of nonconventional Malhar by Pt. Jasraj, beginning with Ramdasi Malhar.

Just perfect for the season. A celebration of the skies.

 I can hear rain lashing the tarpaulin with fierce intent.

There is music in its beat.

Finally the skies have opened up

Gods have been kind

A patient earth awaits

Gushing manna from dark clouds

Thirsty greens revel

distant hills shrink to an  outline

The skies gush forth, endless, breathless

Electricity

A distant clap of thunder

This earth trembles

Renewal

Once again.

So many things can happen, once again.

A friend with a 1.5 hr commute one way treats it as “quality-time”, a picnic, a long drive, listens to songs,  has breakfast enroute and is all smiles when she reaches work… what an attitude!

Today I paid respects at my aunt’s funeral, holding my uncle up by the arm, what a loss for him after sixty plus years of being married. Though for the last six odd years she was bedridden and immobile, gradually becoming unresponsive with motor neuron disease. Nothing drives home how little time we really have--smashan vairagya as it’s called. How little time really, and part of the reason I step back from acknowledging, taking credit if I do something “good”, why should the right hand know what the left has given? At some point in some lifetime I have paid with a substantial punya-loss for ego, for arrogance, pride—by design or ignorance--who knows?—and in this lifetime I’m careful to not even lead at prayers, lest that breed pride, or self praise. Weird, but let it be.

Sweet Sixteen (yeah right!) is the title of a crisply-written, fresh young adult novel by Vibha Batra. A people-like-them Delhi kid moves to Chennai in Class 11, rebels a bit and then adjusts, even makes new friends. Sixteen is upbeat and enthusiastic, after long I finished a book at one go, staying up beyond midnight to finish. The writing is smooth and smart-- young, peppy--and I quite enjoyed some of the devices she used to sort of slot the book differently (but I shan’t give that away!). One identifies with the protagonist, her voice is very clear, as is that of her mom’s. The father for some reason gets minimal treatment, just a presence in the background, the man who pays the bills. In some ways a window into another world, one of cocooned privilege, where one isn’t terrified of not making it to the right college,or about current events, and where parents are anything but marks-driven and hands on, no angst, no rebelling. Perhaps small town India is different, or perhaps it was, and isn’t anymore and what do I know. The distractions and pressures that a sixteen-year old faces are not to be shrugged at, yes, I did gape at some of the escapades and guesstimate, wide eyed,  her pocket money. A happy, happy  read.

I dreamt of her last night, not the way she was later, not at the end, no not that, but a sixth-seventh grader, her hair in that tousled cut that I’d tease that the mice had nibbled at. In an underground manmade cavern, a ramp led to a lovely pool with great light and Moorish tiles on the walls, and suddenly the kid laughed and ran free and jumped into the pool, swimming like a dolphin, darting below the surface blowing bubbles, and just so happy, so free, the happiest I’d ever seen her. I awoke to a sense of peace, her pealing laughter tiptoeing into my day.

I'd be very worried if I were she
destroying a raven's nest embedded in a canopy 
of golden green, perfectly formed
where sunlight played hide and seek
green executed roughly on flimsy excuse-- 
 a call for trouble, tempting the fates
I'd be very worried indeed.


the silent afternoon errupted with the cries 
seemed like the skies were filled with black
 distraught crows flapping about
that majestic banyan tree came alive with their pleas
as they watched the chopping, merciless
branches tossed asunder
each cut of blunt axe a slap
to be earned back many times over
such is the curse of the ravens, the messengers of our forbears
I'd be very worried indeed


I usually sleep the sleep of the dead
but last night I awoke with a jolt
3.30 the clock read
I walked to the windows, watched worried
the amputated tree without its nest, the mother sitting over her eggs
in the cosmic game of give and take
what fury would this bring on
this callous call to a raven's might, this sly tempting of the fates
then i tossed and perchance slept
in this game of unending cross and naughts
perhaps this too, was called for
the die is cast, never undone.

Snoopy died early this morning, two days after his return from the dog hospital.

He was restless and disinterested in food these last few days, and one had to follow him  pleading.

The sight of his lifeless form by the parking lot will stay with me to my last days. And the memory of our man wagging his tail, having spotted me at a distance with his food bag late in the night, so as to avoid unctuous neighbors.

Dogs will bark, they’re dogs, it’s in their nature, right? Yet Snoopy had quietened quite a bit, wouldn’t take handouts from other people, and generally kept to himself.

RIP Snoopy.

 Move on to a better life.

The nearer you get to that half-century mark, the more you realize how little time there really is.
Yesterday I watched travel plans (a few months into the future) crumble and vanish, that elusive line of mountains grow hazy, as work deadlines intervened.
I raged and i fumed and roared, and I *adjusted*
Today the world has set itself right, flowers have their bright colors back.
Deadline restored.

back in the hometown, they had a townhall meeting to build a new, vibrant, buzzing city...
how I miss home sometimes, and how Mumbai sometimes feels like home...strange and unsettling feeling, this.
some photos in the meanwhile.

Inner Courtyard: Maharani Shantadevi NH

Baroda. Yes, the city of Kings. Including one who turned his back on the Emperor of Great Britain, the ruler of all domains.

Baroda. Heritage city. And its young who’d rather migrate to US UK NZ AZ anyplace even Fiji but not live here.

I want to go back someday. Which is why I still pay my property tax and light bills.

Baroda. Where the temperature sways from 7 degrees (in Dec.) to a sweet 47 (in May).

So shut up and tan/freeze.

Baroda. Where you have one of the world’s best art schools and a fine music college. Where every place is fifteen-some minutes away.

Baroda. Where you know the shortcuts that no one else remembers. And you still rue the time you returned an early Dickens to the Central Library, cause that was the right thing to do.

Baroda. The place that is still home in your dreams, where the stars spread silver on water-cooled terraces.

Wasn't this the Reading Room? opp Dandiya Bazar, off Rajmahal Rd.

Kalabhavan, MS Univ. The Faculty of Engg. The pharmacy dept was housed in a modern building, alas.

Kothi, the District Collectorate. Just how regal this looks!

The Old Police Headquarters.

Shiyabaug Police Chowky. Amazing wood cut outs.

My late aunt's house. Now this entirely gracious way of living is being abandoned.

Some beautiful work.
Anusha Jasraj’s Commonwealth prize winning story


Fatima Rashid’s Massachusetts Review story, *It Takes Two Hands to Clap*
(Winter 2010)


That envy-mountain took me a week to get over.

So right that the heavens tipped over- drenching me to the skin
this morning, the first real day of the monsoon
celebrated with a walk though a inspired forest
amidst Asia's largest slumland.
eighty feet of soil spread across seventeen acres
a bricklined path zigzagging
and a forest of sturdy medicinals and perennials planted
 nature left to do her job
birds, butterflies, bees, moths
humming, trilling,
creating a magic neverland
after the skies poured
notebook tucked away
trying to soak in all the wisdom
only the taste remains
and awe

Venus trails her fingers

across the face of the sun,

surrenders herself to  fiery nothingness

delights in the scorching  flare

her dance languorous

every moment made to last

the next hundred seventeen years.

~

Venus transit

Suddenly the resident crows on the banyan

Turn silent

Cowls, mourning

But how did they know?

~

All day I sat

my back to the glittering sea

The waters tipping to the horizon and beyond

A little quieter today,

witness to the dance of the celestials

All day I sat

Clenched fist.

I must be the strangest person I know

Every morning

I talk to trees

Grin at new leaves nodding in the breeze

Exult at the touch of sunshine on green

Frown, coax a branch that’s given up on the fight

A strange kinship, unspoken

Binds me to the ground, this ground

Yesterday

I met them again, all of them,

As if for the first time

Reveled in their families, their origins

Snippets of their history

From the hoary passages of time

Two plus hours trooping from tree to tree

In the park where I usually rush past

This once a note-taker, hanging on to every word

So yes, I met them all again

Tivar, Cajuput, Sita arjuna, Nagakesar

But the sense of pride at the expert’s exclamation

Or a special feature

Was something I lack the words for.

Only in Bby do you venture from work at 11pm, and are not scared out of your wits driving past almost empty industrial-area roads, only in Bby do you call and tell your vegetable vendor to leave your order with the security guard at the main gate of your complex, only in Bby do you eat s'wiches at midnight listening to songs over the radio, and no one gives quite a damn. 
Salaam Bby.