Last night, timepass channel surfing brought me to DD Bharati and the tail end of a documentary on one of the country's foremost poets, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Where the v/o went on about how he is being forgotten, even in his home state.

I recalled lines which I'd learnt in 1980, word by painful word for this non-Hindi speaker... how can someone with such a legacy be forgotten?

उद्देश्य जन्म का नहीं कीर्ति या धन है
सुख नहीं धर्म भी नहीं, न तो दर्शन है
विज्ञान ज्ञान बल नहीं, न तो चिंतन है
जीवन का अंतिम ध्येय स्वयं जीवन है
- from Parshuram ke updesh

My sympathies with the Taksim square protesters.
More gardens, less memorials please.
in the ALM park, the kailashpati are in bloom. 

Last week, the powers-that-be chopped blunt the decades-old trees in my colony. I hope next lifetime the tree-maulers are reincarnated as trees.

So over the weekend the monsoon announced its presence. Big bang style, furiously, sheets of water and all.
I dusted off the music system and made a color coded pile of the books I've yet to read. 
Not only because someone seems to have appropriated my old leaky black umbrella for themselves, but also because this is the first working day of the week so one must seem busy, and also because I'm not sure if the subways would still be flooded,and what about parking, and truth be told whether Miss Blue aka dhanno rani (with me at the wheel) have the requisite skills to negotiate our bumper-to-bumper expressway, I'm not at a friend's book launch this evening. And feeling guilty as hell about it. Not attending a book launch is a mean, dirty and underhand kind of a thing to do...I agree, Sorry, Icy.

Anyone who can think up a business model to address the needs of the old, with offspring abroad-- is going to make a ton of serious money. 
Forces one to think of one's situation too, a decade or two down the line.
last few weeks have been busy.
too many unexpected things. travel, travel, travel. And work interspersed.

the markets have been skittish.

after the first rainshower, nothing yet, but coming soon soon soon...gray tinges the outline of huge clouds spotted thru picture glass windows.. The full power, thundering monsoon...we wait....

The heat hits at you like a wave, scorching searing burning, even if you keep telling yourself it isn’t hot, it isn’t hot, just 43 deg C, the weight on your forehead and the sweat sheet on your back tell you otherwise. You look at words trying to read, to think to write but your eyes seem clammy and your head hurts, not comprehending.And this is without stepping outside the house.

When the train reached big city bright lights this dawn I was delighted to be back; delighted the first time in sixteen years.

The rare and much valued Rudrakhsh tree in the park is slowly dying, Acharyaji, the head gardener tells me.
The leaves are drying out, and the roots refuse to respond to cajoling.
I think the roots are not getting the space to grow, to push ahead.

Delighted to announce publication of a short essay in my local magazine, The Mahakali Voice. “Ode to green” is about the delights of walking round and round for an hour in a none-too-large park.

Last night I sneaked into a neighbor's house, duty-bound and much too late for a "Mata ki chowki", a prayer meet to the Mother Goddess.Left a few hours later, humming along and refreshed after an impromptu family-only singing spree, including two garbas that I sang, their bonhomie and boisterous cheer quite infectious.

The amaltas are fading out slowly, their yellow dimming, bidding adieu. Even in this a special kind of beauty, but you need eyes to see it. 

A one-and-half year old stuck at the top of a slide, too terrified to move—her mother  finally gives in to my pleas, climbs up and nudges her down, I catch her safely and hand her over. Makes me wonder how many times we need a gentle nudge in our lives. Or a pair of hands willing to pull us away.

Have gently coerced two of my good friends into reading the chapters; for burrs and thorns, and oddness of phrase that would SHOUT out to a non-native, but things that I would drive a road roller over. We shall see.

above: The Vishal Bharadwaj in conversation with Salim Arif
below: the verdant valley view from the open area... the silence has to be believed

Cinema 100 at Whistling Woods, May 11, 12

Installation art: A portrayal of Awara

Kaan/ Cannes!

Wall of the greats

Two views of the institute...so inspiring

Yearwise, the stalwarts

Alumni filmi achievements

Saturday was the first time that I’d ventured to tinsel town in sixteen years of living here, but 100 year celebration of Cinema is reason enough. 

“Fillum city?” I’d asked the man on the bike at the signal, our human GPRS better than any google maps. Incidentally, google maps place you in the middle of that green forest patch of Aarey milk colony, or what little remains of it. Before that I’d spent HOURS dredging up from memory the shortcuts the parent and I took in the 90’s and I was SURE one could reach Film city that way, but luckily better sense prevailed and I took the expressway. “Right and then sharp left and then…Follow me!” the man said, with a flourish entirely apt if he were galloping on a white steed instead of his bike, and that is how I  reached the sylvan, forest-like enclave. Locating the Whistling Woods Film Institute (WWI) was yet another adventure, since there aren’t any people around at all as the road winds and turns up and down hill, and but of course I reached the wrong spot—the set of Mr Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saraswatichandra… what an immense, grand set. After parking under a generous banyan, and trying to cajole a guard to stay parked there, I finally trundled my way to the institute quite some distance away… and what a marvelous place!  The ebullient energy of the crowd, the neat installation art, a certain electric something in the air…the sheer confidence of the students--with all this wandering about I was late for the inaugural… but after waiting outside the auditorium, the guard was kind and allowed me in… jostling crowds that had to be seen to be believed. Was privileged to hear the greats—screenwriters Salim Khan, Subhash Ghai, Anjum Rajabali, directors Gauri Shinde, Anurag Basu, Amol Gupte, Vikramaditya Motwane, and then a special Q& A session with Vishal Bharadwaj…the evening topped up with a superhousefull screening of Bombay Talkies. Muchly grateful to Little Miss Blue, aka dhanno rani, for having steered me there and back safely, it was close to 9 PM when I got home… but what a treat!

A whirlwind week.

My friends Anju Ghangurde and PT Jyothi Datta, both excellent journalists worthy of the old school-drilled facts-journalism, co-edited and researched a book authored by  Shri MKB Nair (89), Anju’s father and Dy Editor of The Economic Times for over three decades. What a tribute, and what terrific documentation of some of the events that shaped India’s history, a ringside view of epochal events, with his trademark honesty and directness. I was privileged to witness the book launch, even though I went to the wrong venue, “something to do with cricket in Bandra”.

More later.

Mago sent in this link for the book: 
http://www.indussource.com/Product/General~Non~fiction/Biography/The-Unknown-Nair/122.aspx

Once again I take the roads I used to know well twenty years ago. It is dark, Sunday crowds throng the roads. High rises and office blocks have overtaken known landmarks. I ask for directions and am answered in Hindi, perhaps they aren’t used to seeing a tired woman with a backpack that hour of the night, but I’m supercharged, my first ever BRTS ride, zipzapzooom, and a stranger, a lady with a bandana covering most of her face, offers me a scooter ride, I ride pillion after  decades. The city is scorching even as it races after new new new, makes me grateful for the slow and plodding pace of change in the hometown. Between the tragic-comic drama of those two days, and the stranger in that second class compartment who mentioned assisting on several films but didn’t look the part-- these have given me enough “raw material” for a lot of tales.Mogambo khush hua.

Wonderful walk through Dharavi Nature Park y’day, the dumpyard-converted-to-miniforest. The kadamb was in bloom, the arjuna in a leaf-and-seed-shedding phase. Made my acquaintance with lots of trees, textures and scents I didn’t know before.

Season’s special: Tadgola, that raw, no-taste fruit of the palm.

Chilled,  a shortcut to bliss. Almost makes up for not being able to eat mangoes. Almost.

Datura, the killer, solanacea

ashwagandha, withania somnifera, the brain tonic

kailashpati

%%%% I typed this morning, no cooking no walk, chapter 25 closed and done, now for the version three of the translation. Long nights of trying to stay awake almost asleep at the keyboard, the TV droning on  slumber antidote, of half an hour here, an hour there, early mornings, keying in over oats, over tea, coffee, ignoring the sweat on your back and the inquisitive crow who’s missed his tidbit… thanks to P who’d ask every other day. “You finished?” “Not yet.” Now for the battle with the *shabdakosh*, the relentless digging for shades of meaning, not this, this, maybe this… Hell I’ll self publish if push comes to shove but I’m seeing this one through, in true Scarlet fashion, “As God is my witness….”

Only in Mumbai would you traipse into and out of two urban villages, walk beneath a highway, take a shortcut to the commuter station and then walk again a good fifteen minutes to listen to classical music from two centuries ago, perfectly rendered at a free concert held in the memory of the truly great.(Ustad Allaudin memorial concert). Only in Mumbai would the old gent sitting next to you say I have no knowledge of musical notes—and then correctly identify every raga presented, and he’d tell you about listening to the national program of music on radio Akashwani every weekend without a break for the last SIXTY years. Yes, only in Mumbai would you have to push your way out at your station at eleven in the night...

While I’ve been a big fan of IWW for years now and forever beholden, I’ve stayed away from facetime. Until now. Yesterday afternoon I sat in traffic (in an auto and then a shared cab v interesting) to reach a new part of town, but it was worth it, bonding with strangers and text over a cup of tea, all discussions pertinent, focussed, the people gentler than on the workshop. Thank you, caferati

An almost-perfect poem in neat copperplate

Tripped

By a word. A single word.

Pulled out from a shabdakosh, a language dictionary

unused tome dusted, the alphabets scrambled for, hazily

magnifying lens scanning the letters, impatient

just a single word

the entire color changes, somber

The cassia 
by the deserted factory
(even windows ripped out)
doesn't care
All it knows is spring

 Reason to celebrate --

The amaltas are blooming

On that stump of an almost white bleached-out tree

Mold on the bark

Dismal, stunted, ignored

Dwarfed by the profusion all around

Yet a sprig, yellow-tipped

profusely yellow, the buds spilling over

A sprig yellow-tipped

Sated by who-knows-what sap

Drawn, drawn from deep beneath

Sings

Spring

It was almost night when I stopped to speak with you,

Exchange a word of greeting

shifting my bag of groceries, eager to step home, hungry.

A casual encounter with a neighbor

When did that conversation move past bhajans that you’d just heard

and meander elsewhere?

Perhaps it was the way your lip trembled

Even though you held your grey head high

Picking at the hem of your simple dress

Looking all around from time to time.

When did that tale step past politeness

To sibling abuse and mental torture?

Too familiar a tale—elder abuse, and yes this my India

My valiant, ancestral India

I listened only too conscious of my grey

And covered up grey

And, yes could money run out

And one’s own turn away

All the whatifs

Rushed down upon me

Trailed me home

Now I wear them, like a second skin.

"Jacaranda. Wo jacaranda hai..." Acharyaji, our park  garden expert told me this morn when I described the awesome carpets of purple.  So beautiful. Yes, I managed a walk on this short a visit also, in that interesting place sandwiched between snooty town and the villages of Khizrabad and Taimur nagar.
Tried not to be impressed at the roads, after all that's all our money being used there while we negotiate potholes with a prayer and light brake.
That child dressed in a pretty pink dress and toothy grin  who tugged at my hemline, "Didi..." Lifetimes!

“Austy, but Krishna’s telling Arjun to go ahead and fight a war!” AM says

“Yes, the sermon on the battlefield. A case of last minute jitters. The decision to fight’s been taken quite some time ago.”

“But…”

“To understand this, you have to go into the back story, the story of the banishment and ‘not a needle-worth of land…', sometimes the only choice is to be brave.’”

AM’s Canadian, a smart kid, trying to come to terms with the Bhagvad Geeta.

Maybe I needed this reminder too. We’re alive only once. Lifetimes will come and go.

Though I caught only the tail end of this tree walk the view of the first amaltas sprig on an almost dry, barren tree was well worth it.

Delighted to announce the publication of a Prose poem, Sun addict 2, 
on Ink Sweat and Tears, a poetry ezine.
 http://www.ink-sweat-and-tears.com/

RIP Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/04/ruth-prawer-jhabvalas-stories.html

I read  *The Judge’s will* last night, and still haven’t been able to shake off the story.

So much to be thankful for, small things sometimes, no I didn’t know I had voice and delivery…

The Valley Scribe, the newsletter of the California Writers Club- San Fernando Valley, features my story Verbal Acoustics, in its April issue. One version of this tale was one of my earliest subs to the IWW Practice group. A big thanks to Kathy Highcove for this opportunity.
http://www.cwc-sfv.org/ValleyScribe/2013-04/The%20Valley%20Scribe%20-%20April.pdf

AAfrica… the five year old, a neighbor’s daughter, squealed pointing at the continent. Noorth America, South Americaaa, Asiaaah…

Where does all this excitement about the world go?

Where does the thrill of learning go?

Does getting older mean we stop learning?

I got a autographed many-hued world as a gift.

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obit. Pure Slush Vol. 6 is now available Pure Slush is proud to announce the publication of the long-awaited obit. Pure Slush Vol. 6 one year in the writing! 87 years in the living! 22 writers in 32 stories give their own personal recollections of Webster Murphy Allen 1925 - 2012 the man and his mysteries, the wine and the whining, the wheeling and dealing, the laughter and the tears, the ecstacy and the espionage! Who was he really? For a taste of obit. click here  US$13.00 plus shipping   Click on the cover image above to order or click here  Featuring the work of William Henderson, Michael Webb, Jaylee Alde, Meghan K. Barnes, Mira Desai, Jennifer K. Dick, Teresa Burns Gunther, Kyle Hemmings, Gill Hoffs, Joanne Jagoda, Joyce Juzwik, Jen Knox, Maude Larke, Matt McGee Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Matt Potter, Martha Rand Sally Reno, Dusty-Anne Rhodes Andrew Stancek, Susan Tepper and Erin Zulkoski.

random shed, Ranibaug

ceiling, Bhau Daji Lad Museum/ Victoria and Albert Museum

Mahua tree ( i think)

HRH The Queen

Reena Kallat's winning installation-- stamps made of changed road names

A cannonball tree/ Kailashpati

Obit, an anthology from Pure Slush is at the press-- I have a story in it.
Pure Slush has  created a book around the detailed obit of a fictitious New Yorker, Webster Murphy Allen (http://pureslush.webs.com/webstermurphyallen.htm). Submissions were invited around this theme, drawing from his life.
http://pureslush.webs.com/atasteofobit.htm

Other writers contributed stories about the same person, about different parts of this character's life, etc. They took incidents or ideas or traits or other characters mentioned in the obituary ... and sometimes their stories refuted them. Stories could be wholly about the obit's subject or maybe only in passing.
My story has my somewhat-big-city-India imprint, and I’m sure the tales of the other authors reflect their lives as well.
Can’t wait to see my copy.

One more beautiful morning exclaiming over trees, touching sundry trunks and branches. This time, the tree group,TAW,  walked through Rani Baug, or the Victoria and Albert gardens and zoo or the Jijamata Udyan—I don’t care what they call it as long as they preserve it and not turn it into one  silly amusement park.

http://www.saveranibagh.org/aboutus.php

Amazing amazing trees. Felt so good to recognize a few- the tivar, the brownia,  the sita-ashok, the ficus, cajuput-- they felt like old friends. Saw so many new trees, including rare ones that have grown over a century.

This has been an incredibly tough post to write.

I was reading one of the better personal advice blogs, Trent’s simple dollar or Raptitude, I forget which, and the post was about looking back at mistakes (life mistakes, blunders, not minor misses) And picking three lessons that one has learned from them. So I thought and thought and winced and thought and well, here we go:

1. I should have trusted my gut feel. The writing on the wall IS as one reads it, and no, that’s not delusional. No one can know your interests better than you. I should have, but I didn’t., and that undermined my confidence. And it would have given me more time with the parent, time that’s irreplaceable now.

2. I should not have been passive, or what’s that term, passive aggressive. But talking back is not so part of my nature. Or defending turf. I tend to give up, compromise to keep the peace.

3. I could have strengthened my own resources. There is one part of me which says I’ve done ok. There’s another part that says I could have done much much better, sharper, been more PROACTIVE rather than merely riding the wave. 

Neat thing, this.

Yes! To new leaves on the rain tree, the tivar, the laburnum, and to the first-ever palash blooms I’ve ever seen, fragile and prone to wilting. The kailaspati are blooming, just in time for Shivratri--the festival dedicated to the God that dwells on Mount Kailash-- there is a certain hardiness about these blooms despite how showy they are, and some may not find them “pretty.” The Bauhinia, on the other hand, are making a marked exit, I notice the leaves yellow and drop first and then the blooms give in. But yes, it is a fresh new time for my little patch of green, the neighborhood park.

Is it possible to out-wait something, so by the time that thing reaches you, the impact has faded away, the excitement non existent, and the only bewildering thought is how much work remains to be done?

I was at a puja yday to celebrate Shivratri, with a consecration to the fire and chanting, the entire ceremony being performed by family members, the event meaningful and somber—much better than any prayer ceremony that a Panditji could perform.

Sadness-- not mine--and two requests for help, two instances on the same day. Been there, done that and yes I can tell you worked for me, your mileage may vary. I tell one to keep a stoic silence, any replies are petrol to the anger, until of course it gets too much and then one must shout back, the way one would admonish a dog. I tell the other to work for closure and move on, life is too short and too important. Thankfully my bleeding heart phase is over and done with, and my circle of concern limited--I wonder what if anything the Universe is trying to say, usually I let people be.

On my walk this morning I was startled by a flurry, a swish of water droplets and OMG a shimmering blue-green Kingfisher… I stood dazzled, and then it flew off...The palash and sita-ashoka are in bloom, have never seen a palash bower before—beautiful.

TAW’s tree walk y'day took me to the BPT Gardens, Colaba at the crack of dawn, well 7.30 AM, which is early enough. What a glorious exorbitant treasure this place is. Money plant leaves as long as my arm climbing trees that reach skywards. Excellent cacti, and diverse Euphorbiacea, which I learnt is quasi- cacti, only the spines and flowers are arranged differently. The nicest was the Nux Vomica and the Desert Rose, both too pretty for the dangers they present, and I shall do good justice to them, in a story, I mean. Only in this city can it happen, strangers bonding over cacti and trees, learning about their histories and families, and all this knowledge given away for free. On the way back I learned what a mega block on the WR means.

And today you’ve have been forty-one, and like every year I’d have said old hag, and you’d have poked and said you old hag, and you first--you first we’d have shrilled till we laughed our guts out…HB, any which space you’re in, and what else is there to say about life except it goes on, and I toasted the day with pizza.

BAJ

Delighted to announce publication of a story, Waiting for July, in the latest issue of Birmingham Arts Journal.
I'd subbed this over a year ago, and had no idea of the acceptance, so this was a super duper surprise!

http://www.birminghamartsjournal.com/pdf/baj9-4.pdf

Not so bad, I must confess.

I vacillated, cried, fretted over shifting cities in 1997.

Did the two city commute till my brain fried over and I gave in, for a “trial period”.

It has been 15 years since.

I still do the two city commute. Sometimes.

Yesterday I made a list of things I began to do after moving to the big city.

Yes, it’s a long list. Yes, I was surprised. Oh my, I never!

This city taught me to live any place on earth. And call it home.

just in:An abstract sunset in crayons, many hued and horizon to horizon

Scrambled images and lines from the last week, lines that it seems imperative to hold on to, to wear on my skin; a train proudly rushing past an empty platform, battle weary at midnight; live orchestra at a wedding and the once propah Mrs Patels settling the floor alight, bollywood style; listening to the elder’s somber halting words about being brown in 1959’s UK, racism, desperation and a curmudgeonly knight.

Yesterday I made a list. A recycling list. Of words to spruce up, add a bit of weight and color and atmosphere and perhaps an insouciant toss of curls, and send out. And in the translation I’m working on, I may have bit off more than I can chew. Maybe. But it gets me out of bed every 6 AM, wonders be.

The newspaper forecast has been unusually perceptive this once; Peter Vidal at his acerbic best, nudging, prodding, sandpaper to my skin lest I grow comfortable, lest I readjust as I’m prone to, shaping the contours of my belief to whatever boulder/ impediment/ attitude it must now put up with, snipping away at my soul, adjusting, always giving up, fragmenting. So-- bleary-eyed I read the snippet every morning and get my daily dose of  a scold, and every morning I replace frayed and pale pieces of the self from the day before. And so life goes on.

In the interim:  I listened deeply at the Kabir festival, recorded fragments of a concert by Mukhtiyar Ali at Shri Suresh Wadkar’s music academy, took a bus to a concert in distant Borivali and listened to the greats – Shri Prahlad Tippaniya, Shri Mooralala Marwada and Shri Mukhtiyar Ali sing from the heart ,the simple words the poet saint Kabir wrote all those centuries ago.

One weekend I trailed along with the Tree Appreciation Walk, gaping at the palms in Hiranandani Heritage Garden, touching the textured bark from time to tine and listening to stories about them.

This weekend I was back home, watching a young one get engaged in much opulence, wondering how a simple ceremony that traditionally was marked with the sharing of jaggery and coriander, become as formal, big ticket.

And I’m becoming much better at jumping on and off buses and trains.

I still haven’t sorted through all the photos from Jaisalmer- Jodhpur, I’m still shocked at how many there are—but I will.

Thank you for your patience. Am reading and writing, head above water and just as determined.

I’ve been thinking of the fossil park. 180 mill years ago an entire forest stood tall. Now the place is barren, thankfully distant from Jaisalmer so that only the most intent make it there. We were the only people in the park when we went there—it was eerie and beautiful…One is a mere speck in the continuity of time.

And I’ve been thinking of the Patwa haveli. This madly beautiful series of 18^th C carved stone mansions that took 60 years to create, a proud signal of having arrived, from a man whose thriving business in gems, opium, spices and silks spanned 250 countries. A man who’d financed the king-- thrice. The mansions are exquisite, sheer poetry in stone. I’d gone there all alone one late evening, just to look at the façade in the partly floodlit moonlight. Shut your eyes and it is easy to imagine neighing horses and placid camels tied up at the entrance, and a great deal of hustle-bustle as gold sovereigns are exchanged for the fine things in life… each mansion has five floors and two levels underground.

I stared at the pigeons fluttering at the carved galleries... and my anger evaporated, as understanding settled in.

Delighted to announce publication of my essay, Light, in Annalemma.
This is about classical music lessons I and the kid sister took ages ago.
And how I stopped singing once she'd gone.
Funny thing, this--making 1500 word essays out of personal histories.

Ok…now that the sheets have been changed, the furniture dusted and floor cleaned, the plants brought back from my friend who was babysitting them… it almost feels like home. In good news, my Aadhar card is in—the postman called me to let me know he’s putting it in the mailbox (surprising how much a diwali baksheesh can matter… ), the first issue of New Yorker courtesy the US State Dept is in, though it seems read, but all that reminding for my prize for SPAN’s competition seems to have helped, or maybe this is a, token gesture… my tax papers are in, so last year is finished and done.

I began looking at the 1350 photos from the trip, and realized there is no way I can upload all of them, so will begin to share snippets with photos asap, and in no particular order. Shortly.

Thank you for writing in. Didn’t quite expect this, and it warmed the cockles of my heart. 

(Eh, I has ‘em you know, cockles and cowbells and sunshine and suchlike.)

Some of you have an issue with anonymity—you can remain as anonymous as you like, your mail id could well be abcxyz@yahoo/ gmail/ whatever—as long as I have a mail id to plug in.

I will be leaving in a couple of days to watch endless oceans of sand, shiver in the chill that thunders down from the north, track the flight of the falcon above weathered sandstone,and suchlike.

This blog is going private in the new year.

For now, for ever, who knows?

If you've been reading and wish to continue reading, drop me a line.

austereseeker2909@yahoo.com

Else, Godspeed and good journey, and may you days be suffused with goldspun.

The last few days have been an eye opener. Yes, I’m shading the words and yes, I’m cautious, wary still waiting for the wrecking ball to swing back, it has to, you know, oscillatory motion. Cainer in his impeccably accurate forecast had written about being shoved off a high cliff and just about managing to grasp a shrub, branch, whatever, to break the fall. And so it was. And so it was. After being shaken, punched, hammered at, I crumbled like the boxer in the corner but stumbled up again. How many times must one sit with one’s head held high regardless, reinvent the wheel --and why? Is this the only alternative? Why is this  the only alternative? If one knows oneself, and as one inches closer to the half-century mark surely one ought to know oneself, one begins to wonder at the predictability of events and the fault of one’s passive participation in their coming to a close, such a close. As the parent used to say, you cannot teach an old horse new tricks.

After a long long time I woke up this morning wanting to get up.What an incredible time I’ve had over the last two days. Linked to some cosmic source of energy…I’d say, if I believed in all that hoopla. 

Amazing crowds gathered to listen to Gulzarsir at the concluding session on the verdant lawns at Mehboob Studio, at a reading where Nasreen Munni Kabir’s book Conversations with a Poet, was launched. Yes, I stood in queue for an autograph and mentally touched his feet.  

Watched with a raised eyebrow the crowds that had gathered to listen to Chetan Bhagat earlier in the day, personally I like my t’s crossed and I’s inked, thank you, but feel free to do otherwise. 

Earlier, listened to Gulzarsir and Javed Akhtar discuss Manto with Prasoon Joshi, where Atish Taseer just about managed to make this pov heard—but what an audience! Lovely, enriching to hear about that era of words. 

Then listening to Rana Dasgupta, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Jeet Thayil, Anjali Joseph and Nilanjana Roy talk about the craft of shaping words… Rana Dasgupta called being in the flow almost a mystical process… maybe if I’d be that way sometime anytime I’d buy that…I raced after Daniyal Mueenuddin to get his sign on my slightly dogeared copy of  “In other rooms..”, but there was no way I could tell him though I dearly wanted to-- that I consider his work as fine as Munro’s, or Maugham’s. 

Watched Mira Nair in conversation with Shyam Benegal, watched the trailer of her yet to be released latest, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, wondered at her drive even as an eleven year old when she wrote pages of gibberish for all of six months, gibberish  that still earned her top grade at the convent she was being sent to, to show that she needed to be sent to a better school…what spunk, and what clarity.

Always thought litfests were melas, but this one was rich and well worth my limited time.

http://www.timesliterarycarnival.com/schedule.htm

I needed to be shaken awake. Every rupee of the $2 submission fee paisa vasool. The best part about life events, long after they’ve matured and the pain/ angst/ misery/ tears/ anger, anything that evoked a “from the gut” reaction, the best part after the emotion has mellowed a bit so now you only scowl at it—the best possible use is CNF. Yesterday I very quickly rewrote large chunks of an CNF after the Editor pointed out that I didn’t seem terribly proud of my work, my cussed persistence in pushing on with a genre regardless of rejects and silences. Where did this come from, shrinking violet, this “Yes, but…”? Part nature. Part credit to the notable “ex-perts” who had set the standard at stratospheric Glimmer Train heights and deem any lesser effort worthy of cruel disdain. Somewhere, it stays with you and it slips into the words.

Chillar Party is very good. Hilarious.
Delighted to  read that it cost 5 cr and grossed 33 cr.
Smarter than the nonsense Balaji is delivering in one hour doses now, a national dumbing down.

Perhaps it was always as tough.  I know I took the first job I got post my degrees and then moved on, made it work

But 22 lacs  “donation” for an entry-level college  job?

I was aghast and then G told me—6 lacs for a primary school teacher’s in a district in Maharashtra.

If I were young, I’d be worried. Very.

(Not that its easier post the 40’s cliff.)

And have a backup plan, a second trade or source of income. A plan b as it were.

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2012/dec/031212-Pune-Colleges-ask-For-Rs-20-lakh-donation-for-teaching-job.htm

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2012/dec/041212-Leopard-comes-knocking-at-7am.htm

A leopard. Spots and all. In my backyard. Almost, that is. In the next to next to next apartment block. Not its fault—once a dense forest stood here, trees reaching skywards, sunshine filtering to the ground..One more reason to justify a really late morning walk.

Very interesting to see how CONFIDENT some people are-- even when they’re wrong.

“This doesn’t magnify,” she said.

“You’re looking at the wrong end, turn the binocs around”

“THIS is the right end.”

“Hmm are you sure? The manual said otherwise.”

“The covers are on the part that points away. Magnification is not good.”

Other than the fact that these binocs are different, and that thing there is an eyepiece, the part closest to the eye, what you’re supposed to peer through.

But I like the confidence.

The harbor line moves slowly, even languidly, its tracks tread overhead as it leaves its brash and competitive W. Rly cousin on the ground behind, these crowds  not as pushy nor is the clatter of the tracks as insistent . The stations have quaint names- Sandhurst, Cotton green, King’s Circle. Past Dockyard you marvel at the breeze and the miles of yet-green. And on the ride back it takes 45 minutes to traverse Peddar Rd and you thank the stars for small mercies.

All for two sweaters. One heavy duty, street-bought, a bargain, and yes, I’ve sent it to the dry cleaners. The other store-bought, all wool reversible and so expensive that my eyebrows are still raised. And binocs, am still figuring out which is the eyepiece.

dome

resident gargoyle, pillar base

greater peninsular railway insignia

offices, circa 1887, still in use

at the gate

above the hawkers

bmc

VT station. I got pictures if nothing else.