No, I did not quite expect this.
Not on Loksabha TV. Which is in recent times, going much beyond carrying inaninities on the latest political discussion or debate. Which is anyway a drama, an expensive one!
Fantastic program on one of the land’s greatest quawwals, Meraj Ahmed Nizami saab.
One of the pieces they performed had long ago been part of our classical music learning-- Hazrat Khwaja sang kheliye dhamar
I winced when he said women cannot sing the qawwali. Some other life time then. (Or maybe as long as it is not a prayer at a shrine, it is permitted as my faith is different, and Sufism is all about one's personal connect)
And I clapped when the youngsters picked up, supported, strengthened the aging maestro’s sur, tone.
More on him here: http://www.mabelis.nl/Qawwali/merajnizami/meraj.asp

When I channel surfed last night, I got startlingly lucky.
Riveting story. Dry wit. Detailed, intricate Claymation.
Stunning work.
www.maryandmax.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_and_Max

On the back-home front, the MSU Fine Arts Fair is on Dec 23 and 24. if you're there, please go!
I still own art (cards) and a fired-mud container I'd picked up from there. Maybe 20 years ago.
Amazing energy to the fair, great ambience, out-of-the-world art.

Have just returned from a long and dusty ride out of town (almost), have seen what can be done to schooling for the poorest of the poor if there is intent, resources, sharp will, using available structures and govt. facilities, and tweaking what is needed. Also, in the swing of places from last week’s opulence and creamy layer in attendance to this, I’ve come full circle. Just for the record. Dizzy.

In following routine, I find much satisfaction, even contentment, ticking off a task once done. A remnant of the “should” mentality... Or just that, comfort,knowin you're doing ok--comfort like an old chair or t shirt
Today I re-started a thanks journal.

I must record this—very slight but perceptible nip in the air.
And miracles occur—a cheque I had been praying for, chasing, fretting over, was in the mail.

I watched the expressway race away in the darkness under the star-flooded sky. I watched the city, your city, reflected in the plate-glass windows of the hotel to the quiet purr of the ac. And enough solitaires and stones glitter on the velvet lawns that evening to repay the national debt. And I watched myself watch. How completely funny life is, so surreally surprising, kaisi paheli zindagani.. .

After a monsoon of rejects, I'm glad to announce publication of a story, *Ebony has many shades", in an online anthology, In her place

http://bit.ly/rTDP7k

Every morning I oversleep. Every morning I awake to the crescendo chatter of crows in the banyan tree outside. And I wonder about a cat being tormented, or a strange bird being driven away. And choice. And happenstance and nature. And I return like a faithful homing bird to thoughts that have upset me for a while, and I try to unravel reasons for errant behavior and seek instances in the past that might fit in, like a puzzle, only you’re grasping at a straw in the wind.So where do you go and what do you do, when decisions are taken for you, decisions that you only chance upon, stumble upon, so manipulative. Like someone said, leave it to the fates, to the rhythm of the earth and the wind? Or clairvoyant-like, try to foresee? I think of these questions at odd hours, and then late into the night I sit at the window and watch pinpoints of distant light fade away under a canopy of stars. What does it matter, just crow chatter and fading whispers to the one in the skies.

Come to my window, world, and tell me your tales. Come when the day is young, and the trees alight with bird chatter, and in the far distance the strain of a devotional song speak out to the day. Or at night perhaps when pinpricks of light from impossibly huddled homes are set off past the black outline of the trees. Embroider the silence with your tales when the sky is peach, and a pretty pink sheen reflects off these white walls.
to Life!

Why did you have to misrepresent? Who gave you that right? And if you could misrepresent in this instance,not expecting me to reach the truth of misrepresentation, in how many other have you moulded facts and fiction the way you wanted things, the way it suited you? The thought is worrisome. If I were not a pragmatist, I’d have headed for the woods.
kya duniya hai!
zindagi khwab hai.. khwab mein sach hai kya, aur bhala, jhooth kya...

This part of the month does look like a sledge careening downhill, barely controlled, heavy with adrenalin buzz, task rich. Split second stuff to be done on the personal front, the work calendar is heavily penciled in. Take a deep deep breath, and don’t miss any flights.

Responsibility, at a time when you’re just about learning to deal, form a nodding acquaintance with your own, an additional commitment. One only wonders why one was chosen for the honor; and what must have influenced the decision ages ago, the weight is not too easy to bear nor the choices too easy, one can only guess. Past the shock of the responsibility, an awareness of the issues, how this can break or make, and above all, an overriding need to be fair and seem fair to all. As a friend put it, take a deep, deep breath and keep a clear head.

Sometimes a fuzzy, ambiguous something puts you off a person, even if the interaction is online, specially if the interaction is online. Too edgy, volatile, intent, too intent, too persistent and decisive to the point of being rude, smart intellectual perhaps too smart for his own good. And so you back off, “thanks but no thanks”--unable to say precisely why. Just a woozy discomfort. A moodiness worse than one's own. Retreating behind that lovely cloak of politeness and genteel good manners and diplomacy you’ve worn like a second skin, to an explosion, vituperative. And then googling, a few years down the line, the news hits you like a ton of bricks, OMG! And you’re shocked and rattled and taken aback. And somewhere you thank your stars and the kind man in the skies and take a deep breath.There, but for the grace of God...

I’d stepped in for a minute out of politeness; it was late and I needed to finish my walk, but what an amazing time I had, I returned brighter and happier past the magic hour. Old world courtesy, fading sepia photos, lace and laughter. They’ve been married over 50 years-- time in which she turned from demure and dainty, really pretty, slender to gray, and he from dashing and valiant to wrinkled, unsteady now. Sepia, lingering perfume and hints of the Raj. His mother was Anglo-Indian and worked for the railways, looked so much like Jackie O. Laughter gales at the tale of recalcitrant pet hens, a special one that’d sip tea, and the grateful eggs the clutch would produce, and that had to be given away.
There is so much of life around only if we’d take the time to see.

1960's steel cupboard painted burgundy.

handmade cot in three pieces now a blatant blue and white

cane chair a light light blue. given that the walls are sky mimic- white

under the dining table formica (1950's possibly), we found teak. Polished and to be carted to storage for use as a door some day.

Colors... Step by step, but does it have to take so long?

a year and one day,
now I seek you
in the scattered sunshine
golden shower on green
gentle, illuminating
rock strewn paths.

also in
orange lanterns, chinese
bobbing on a giant tree
light bedecked sky
ushering in the new year

as also in
the graceful arc of a perfect star
as it balances on velvet black
then dips into the surf
clamoring on rocky shore
ever so gently

from light unto light
as the hymn says
pass now
ever so gently

Bhimashankar
That a place on earth could be as speechless.
Until I find the words

Amazing how you continue to reach out and bless me from beyond the pale.Stunned. Been so long since you went your way to the skies-- I was five then, am forty- six (and some) now. Once “your” dining table from 1950? was stripped of that faded formica marked with the lines and stains of the decades, magic! A gleaming sheet of burma teak-- three huge planks joined seamlessly, that left the carpenter dazed, he’d not seen something like this, he refused to re-size it. So now I have a spare door for someday. Baba had often recounted the pride with which you’d bought this table, the first time formica was introduced in the country.
Amazing, and not only the teak.

In class 4, I took myself to boarding school, inspired by Enid Blyton—the adventurous soul I was those days. (Of course reality was very different, much growing up happened, and I thrived on the days spent at my uncle’s house.) Now, the school on a hill was a place where culture and art were very important. As preparation for the Spring Festival (before Navnirman revolution intervened and cut the semester short) we were taught a poem, the lines of which have often resonated, half forgotten. These lines were to have been sung as we presented a volume of handwritten poems and stories to the King of Spring.
Was stunned to find madurashtakam online, thanks to google devta. The words felt so good—and I remembered the words right, specially the refrain.

Teak. Beautiful wood. lines, swirls, patterns I don't know the names of, deeply ingrained in the wood, weathered and aged over the years
Once the color was stripped off, the layers of grime and dust and grubby fingerprints and whatnot of the decades scraped off, the magic of the wood beneath—just wondrous , breathtaking. To watch sunlight seep into the wood-- what a treasure.

**

So grateful for the near misses, the regrets one has been handed on a silver platter with a flourish, the ugly thanks-but-no-thanks. Yes, of course I wasn’t grateful then, cried and flailed my arms about and stomped my feet and roared—figuratively speaking, but of course, and some literally speaking too, if I must be honest.
But in retrospect—what a gift. What a brilliant gift. For a hurting, ugly state I would have been in, if not for this gratis bonus—broken and despairing…or adjusting, giving up little bits of myself being nice till it hurt and till the cows came home.

Who said I was nice?

Reading this later, I saw that in the words above, gratitude was missing, overtaken by the hurt but-- the overwhelming residual is gratitude, for life events, for roles played no matter how finite, for the lessons learned, insights into self, and yes,soul connect that one had only read about. Perhaps it is like teak,this scraping and stripping,bootcamp, raw treatment before what is essentially you, your self is revealed.