Grass tousled by spray rain. A drop falters bamboo leaf edge.
A mynah trots on wet paving stones.

What is the color of closure? I don’t know. But it sure has a sweet smell. For reaching this close to insanity a year ago, for grief and for that laughable abject gratitude- let karma take its own dues. Maybe I owed, and I paid up- that too, is possible. I don’t even want to know which version is your truth.

A greeting fetches a cuss and an angry word volley, and then it hits home- what the Buddha meant by dispassionate active calm and how many trillion lifetimes you are away from it.

Without a rolldown screen or a sheet to project on, they cannot use the film. So many different Indias, from the six-screen multiplex to projection on a village wall.

Acknowledge the mess, action measures and dammit move on. The time for decision is at the beginning-not now. Done is done. My blunders are all life-size, ever lasting.
(Work related.)

Sometimes I think I’d be quite happy in a languid silence cocoon, stirring now and then, content to let the world merrily spin by - and I gently remind myself that I’m almost there.

The wind whistles a banshee wail, scatters rain spray, and bounds off the glass walls of this six-storeyed building on a hill.

Every time there is a bombing I think of Kandahar. Tolerate for how long?

The oversized mickey mouse that watches over the wet playswings wears a lopsided grin, the puddles by the pink and rainbow slide shine back at a blurry sky, its finally raining (after a long dry spell),oh yes a certain whatchacallit in the air.

Do you remember what 2000 was like? I do not. Scary, this grainy sense of days coalescing into each other like photographs you can't quite see the images on, nameless blobs of b&w with nothing to show for it.

I coo at this chubby five-month charmer as he gurgles, shows off a toothless smile while his proud parents beam; yes, truly a miracle, a reminder for cynical-at-the-edges me.

A puree of this, that and the other thrown together; you dipstick taste it but a vital something’s missing and it nags you.

Part of the struggle in the act of changing the words over is keeping the meaning intact, part is admitting to oneself the thought-change any set of words causes.

On the horizon the sunset an orange-red slash sandwiched by dense blue black ; a dramatic backdrop to reminisce about the school in a mango orchard, long-gone teachers whose admonitions still echo, and first sighs.

Two weddings, one condolence visit; the widow’s grief a shroud, in all enough social activity-chit chat to last me a month, and I step back into a quiet place.

Crimson, which is also on the older roughpad, is accepted for a poetry anthology.
Feels good.

Yesterday this colleague from another department was someone you met in the lift, said good morning to. Today its not. Why is death so sudden?

Second anniv. of July 11 commuter train bomb blasts.

Stunning greens in the park. Shock still for a moment I reach out and clasp, drink thirstily this energy, exuberant life force, rooted yet reaching skywards; an instant. Whtchacallit.

A rustle wave through knee-high grass, a cat crouches- all white, black paw, amber eyed- but goblins and elves?

What kind of man does this?
In the dark, in the softly falling rain, a girl in a medicated daze, runs and is chased by a man with a camera while her father looks on, the OB van follows close behind, the live feed for national broadcast has supers reading “obsessed/jilted fan hounds celebrity” or similar.
What kind of man does this?
My response is unladylike and quite unprintable.

When it’s the harsh real-world grittiness and intriguing multiple-layer complexity of a Sarkar Raj that stays with you versus the few frames of a frothy chocolatey Dil to Pagal Hai that you force yourself to see “for old times sake”; that you really realize what the years do- you’ve changed.

Watching the machine instantly correct blemishes to make the images print-ready, one wonders what if this option were available in real life, an instant flowing mane, creamy skin or slender waist; but if something were too easy to access in no time it would lose value.

That water finds its own level.
That water flows downhill.
Mostly. But if the path downhill is blocked, water floods.
And so it did.
Caged a lift marking a furrow in the said flood waters (memories of Cal), made it to work to learn I was the only person in my group, turned right around and went home.
The BMC commissioner more or less says “live with it”.
Was that in English?

Those projects did move on to micromanage.Salvaged nth minute, and now are out of the ICU but still in the general ward. J Which means the end is quite some distance away.
The third project, the really really big one, has yet to re-begin.

Must document the curious case of the burnt plastic and the lost tax filing sometime.
Luckily, both were retraced, retrieved after a lot of hand wringing.
Learning- follow up, always always. Also, that he is really getting old, despite his gung-ho attitude.

What bugs you?

That was the writing prompt this week. Interesting reactions, how they vary around the world.

Of course, as a country we tolerate entirely too much.

July 26, 2005 memories of the deluge.

So what bugs you?

In the darkness of crowds trooping home, a woman in a sequined polyester saree worn too high, hands over cash from her rexin purse to a man who stands entirely too close for comfort-so many paths this story can take,what I see will be quite different from what you see, is it not?

Among a roomful of bejeweled women in rustling kanjeevarams and charming gray-haired men seated by white linen covered tables, a bullet from a silenced mauser smuggled through the service entrance of the luxury hotel ricochets off a chandelier. Another whizzes and reaches its target- the elderly statesman at the podium- just as he steps away for some water. Screams, shattering glass, running footsteps and darkness.

Disclaimer: Take one long commute. One bored woman, sitting at said table, twiddling thumbs. One rambling speech. Lots of clapping. Blend.

I have a sub up on sixsentences.
Something. :)
http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2008/06/untitled_4797.html

And humpty dumpty had a great fall.
Silly shoes. Silly me.
Interesting work pace. Crazy, but fun.
Nothing profound. Emerging perspectives are intriguing.

387 words, and done. Unlike last week. There always is time, always. Time is a construct, someone said. A patli gali, a jugaad. Now for the crit deluge. Feels awful when I don’t.

I like to micromanage. On once-a-year projects, the big ones that well, matter. To see it through, each page/frame. Signing off ceremoniously, then its not in my hands anymore, right? This once I’m not doing that- boss’s orders, too much happening at the same time. Am tense and completely in knots. Am trying visual imagery, the annual visit to Mt Mary’s and putting the finished product at her feet like always. Not working too well.

And as always when I need to stop fretting, I cooked. Ground masalas too- garam masala and dhana-jeeru (coriander-cummin), heavenly that fragrance; understood why the aunts back home concoct their own blends instead of buying from the shops.

Father’s day y’day. Baba and I laughed at the 85% discount we’d get if we shopped at Reliance Trends. (One got a discount equivalent to the parent’s age.)

Because he is the King. Because there is only one King.
Because of Abhimaan. And Alaap. Kabhie Kabhie. Silsila. And Black. And Satte pe satta. Kala patthar. And weeping through Muqaddar ka Sikandar. Twice.
Just, because.
http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab

Recycling words. Fragments of phrases, half remembered. Reuse, renew. One could get quite good at this.

Walking home eating a just-roasted, lime and salt-chilli smeared bhutta (corn on the cob), watching reflections in the puddles... Ah,Life.

I turn my face to the sky. Gentle drops brush my skin. Lightening cuts to the ground, a temper tantrum. Rain: intent, pelting, insistent, driven falls like a sheet of steel. I draw the raincoat closer, all resistance futile, drenched in no time.

Another rain: bai’s shanty, mostly mud, tin and stone, has caved in. She runs around trying to find the money, knowing that she hasn’t what it’d take to build strong, 1.5 lacs. She knows and I know what she’s putting together is flimsy, temporary, just about there, but it’ll have to do. Like a lot of things, patchwork.

The city is a mess. Already. BMC, MMRDA officials should be made to stand on the expressway in a downpour, swirling water rising waist high. A first witness check on the so-called disaster management. My first and last crib on this issue.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Last night I saw a red-black night sky with scattered lines of fluffy clouds, lightning cackled like an artist’s highlights, a strange electric unease filled the air. Later, a shower washed leaves clean of grime, that just-about-wet earth smell. Relief.

Abhilasha Ojha/ Business Standard/ How the Jawahar Knowledge Center initiative by the Govt of Andhra Pradesh is changing trajectories for several below-poverty-line families.

Does the soul good to read about hope.

A sprig of red- tipped neem flowers dance against a sea of green, for a day or two- but so beautiful.

sometimes.

you say whattheeff.

what a day. aint over yet.

A no-word tribute to Dadaji, my grandfather, whose 108th b’day anniv was on the 24th.
It was his stubborn will that pushed the family out of the village else I’d still be there, waiting to fill water at a well in a hot dusty hopeless place.

Its beyond clammy, this ugly sweat at 85% humidity, by afternoon a scorching sun-a strange restlessness waiting for the first monsoon. Its going to be a thundering raging one, this season, an ole woman can feel it in her bones.

Like a child with colors and an outline drawing, I’ve gleefully filled in the missing sentences. The story’s from real life, can’t get any better, and if it shocks more than it politely ought to, ach, what can I do?

Only sometimes. You see something that leaves you numb.
Hazaaron Khwaishein aisi/ A thousand dreams such as these/ Sudhir Mishra.
I’m glad I saw it only now. Four years ago I was too raw.

Cut out sunset. Still a beautiful world.

Had written this yesterday, but not posted:
Storms rage overhead. I watch horrified. Somewhat relieved. Not me/mine. Anxious too. This monsoon the skies will pour, like crazy. Chengdu. Xian. Schoolchildren. ohwhatcanyousay. Its raining in Myanmar, furious pelting rain, after the cyclone. Storms that eclipse personal catastrophes. What a tiny speck of insignificance man is, completely useless for all the posturing and shoo-shaa.


Now its me/ mine.
You can go to buy vegetables and be blown apart. Or miss a limb.
The authorities will make the usual noises. Then the case will fizzle out. Like the commuter train blasts.
When do we hit back at the terror-sponsors? When will the US stop mollycoddling Pakistan?

That there are just x plus 1 themes, that a story has a prime of 7 characters; that all editing is iteration- you clean up till the incremental effort is no longer worth your time; that is Manil Suri’s take on the connect in writing and maths. (Mumbai Mirror, May 7)

Somehow one has viewed tales as patterns, aberrations or breaks in pattern really, a delta on the normal, the expected, and the liberty to spin a yarn on the reasons thereof. Is there a connect between biology and writing?

When I’m busy tense, the sort that’s all prickly nerves but not much work, I cook. Hence the hunt last night for my grandmother’s cookbook, succor, order and who knows what in its tattered pages and just-about-there spine. Looking for spices I can ground to an obedient powder to add signature flavor and body to the routine. Just about there cardamom and a dash of clove… As I peer at the strange measures, all zero’s and ones, tola, adha and pa, measures long since discarded, I wonder what exactly I’m looking for, and what stops me from reaching for the store-bought stuff sitting pretty in its container.

The concert on Saturday morning was held at the park. As the first notes of Ahir Bhairav spun out, a cuckoo responded with a cascade of golden notes. Nat bhairav, a Kabir bhajan and a Bhairavi piece created magic for the ten- odd listeners amongst a sea of chairs. The regular walkers kept intent on their ten-minute-stride-and-done.

5 things that surprised:

-the handmade patchwork quilt in crazy colors airing on the fence of that enviable slice of real estate, a buffalo shed, squat by the express highway with the shiny cars; right next to the marble tiled apartment that costs 1.5cr

- the trees alit with purple blooms by the Santacruz flyover. The flyovers were a delight, traffic free.

-jamming with the kid on the synthesizer, he played a passably good kal ho na ho. And the beat in Khaikey paan. The child is so naïve for a baniya’s son.

That’s three. The rest didn’t.

Fabulous lines from Tashan’s signature song-Dil hara- rasta bola, garaj ke aandhi hogi, baras ki tufaan hoga yaheen ruk ja..Lovely, the energy, the syncing with drums- just this one single para, and the turn the line takes after, superb!

I begin to hum, just hearing the fluid notes the hero outlines, words of an age-old composition pulled out of a twenty-five year and rusting memory, of long afternoons spent rehearsing, out-doing yadayadayada. I trip on the name of the raga- Neer Bharan Kaisey jaaon from Khuda Key Liye is in Tilak Kamod, not Piloo. But not bad.

A year since Baba’s operation. A year since I watched, sleepless, the pale wash of colors that filtered beam-like from the AC, a vigil moist-eyed till the colors blurred to a stunning clarity. Some lessons you never forget.

A flock of green-black parrots dots an orange-peach sky, a tiny speck of a chopper whirs past, oblivious of the birds, haze, or matchbox-like cars in busy lines on the highway.

Soaps.
Sandalwood, and the scent lingers long after. Medimix, a bad brand name for a soap so delightfully herb-fresh.

“Because the mother-in-law was once the daughter-in-law” heads the list of Indian soaps that the Afghan government has banned. We should ban them serials too.

Promises to be a scorching summer.

I LIKE crime, the financial sort, nothing messy; also sci-fi, with six moons orbiting an airless earth, to WRITE about, of course, but most of all I like the way it gives you the freedom to Dali-like, stretch ho hum reality way past the escalating price of greens, grain and fruit.

In the few minutes that I scrounged after the meeting, I reached the garden back home, where the first thing I saw was the badam, broken, snapped into two, twig-like, by lightening and the windstorm or so they say; but the asopalav were all right, they could bend to the force of the gale.

The lady in the seat behind mine was traveling with her young sons, all the way to Toronto, this evidently was her first flight ever, she was moving bag and baggage, on permanent resident visa to a land she’d never seen, a language she didn’t know, new people and a new life, and I wonder what is it in our genes that makes us pack up and move, and makes some stay put, come hell or high water.

We’re eighty-five today. Everyday a new day, touchwood. So lukkha he won’t even treat me to peanuts, nah you can’t, he cackles.

Watching the golden orb rise beyond the horizon-line, past the few straggly trees on dusty scrub and the huge pipe that runs to the distant reservoir, one can just imagine onceuponatime, itwaslikethis packed lush green, bird calls to a crescendo, insects buzz, suddenly a rustle in the undergrowth and …silence.

6S, Volume One, publishes today.
Congratulations to all my friends- Crusty, Quin, Babyisland, who've written; this calls for a toast!
For book details, pls visit sixsentences.blogspot.com.

Two sticky learnings. Someone’s long due salute to a writing class teacher who sent her back-“live life, get bruised, then write”; elsewhere a child with cancer celebrates a rare day in school, then sends in her homework.

Nothing newsworthy. Life is even-keel.

Sometimes the shortest way west is to first go east and take the bridge over; you never quite know what particular brand of surprise you’ll find, like that cut-rate second hand bookshop with man-height tall stacks of books, but you buy a train ticket to cross, much to the horror of the auto driver who drops you there.

Blame it on a Mercury retrograde. Two trips into town for one pair of specs, because the opticians forgot one minor measure. Its rather hot already, even with the fast trains the commute is one hour minimum including a fifteen minute trudge through shortcut lanes, but ok, if that’s on the cards, so it is. Did find a new way to reach Crawford market though, a walk that involved some nifty turns past old shops and derelict heritage buildings. Later learnt some personal history- I’d trudged past the now dilapidated office where an uncle once started out in life with shared table space only-law practice; yes, this is the city where anything can happen, anytime.

And for once I have shoes that are not Bata relics.

From the park

After all the social chit chat over dinner, after asking about the health of second cousins whose names one can’t remember, you talked about your work with the salt-pan workers in rural Kutch, teaching them micro-finance, helping them source loans to buy bicycles with, and streamlining age-old work processes; this is REAL WORK, not sitting on a chair in an air-conditioned office, or so I think.

Ah glee! A patli gali, new shortcut, traffic-free- a road that twists and turns, goes up hill and down, mocks the flashy expressway that it briefly runs past but that one’s traffic-heavy, past buildings that perch higgledy-piggeldy on what used to be a hill, tumble-down shanties, a track that goes past areas that are not so nice, repair shops for trucks and tempos, take a left, take a right on to smooth concrete and then viola! home…

Rahman rocks! What a show- tremendous, pulsating energy that holds that thousand-strong crowd mesmerized, clapping and singing along; stupendous wizardry, that variation on the notes. Each time he renders Dil se, its flawless, soul-gripping, different. Only on the telly, alas.

Different rocks too, on the lovely ladies who do dinner; showroom-quality rocks that outshone the strings of lights at the reception last night, lights that shone and glittered with the sea breeze and the quite chatter on an impeccable lawn. I lasted there for half an hour, I’m getting better at the howd’youdo’s.

This year the corner cassia is in bloom, a showy all-gold Monet. Quite unlike the washed out pales last year.
Still, the cuckoo trills pre-dawn to a single star pinned to the sky.

Talking to you yesterday the years magically condensed, talking late into the night over mugs of stealthily brewed coffee huddled on hostel-issue beds, talking about this that and the other, and despite all, nothing has changed, not really.

Glittering purple lights on the tarmac under a pitch-black sky, a single star shines overhead. An evening spent savoring art and the art of conversation by a lush lawn in a perfect home, envy the old-styled swings on the Mangalore-tiled open porch. The big city past midnight is a million points of gold, this makes the two hour flight delay worthwhile. So many colors, so many… on such days I tell myself go get real.

The flames of the bonfire for Holi. A piecemeal bonfire with old furniture and sundry twigs and branches, the way it best is. A red veiled newly wed performs the customary pooja. The chattering crowd is hep- no, I don’t know anyone here and I’m content not to, to just stand back, be a part of the crowd-edges, hear the cackle and hiss as flames leap red orange against a black sky and watch red edged embers float gently to the ground.

Splashes and patches of purple- magenta- red on tar, wild shrieks and laughs of kids playing holi brought back memories of times when one was happy to be a red, green and yellow haired witch draped in kaleidoscopic multicolor, when did all this change?

A saturday off for once, and where does it go?

The colors around are so lovely, I’d rather keep them to myself for a while. Spring.

Colors

A hundred shades of green flutter in the breeze, forming an intricate lace canopy over impatient traffic.
Shiny cars, rattling autos, buses and cycles jostle to a metallic symphony and set off tiny dust clouds.
But by the roadside, dancing jade shimmers against the palest blue.

The season of colors.

Orange-red kesu flowers are stark and extravagant on a distant leafless tree.
The leaves have long withered, leaving the sap free to nourish the buds and blossoms.
Traditional songs, the hori, rave about the color called gulaal, that these flowers are processed to produce.
Colors that are sprinkled to play Holi, the spring festival that marks the change of seasons.
In time, these flowers will drop one by one, leaving a bare-branched tree stark by an orange carpet.

The season for change. The season of colors.

So its been a hectic week.


So the tests from last week are in, after all the prodding, pinching and wincing, and one’s genes being what they are, the results are what they are, and for once one is glad about the four plus year godawful degree one took, one knows how to handle this. Somewhat. Enough already. No comments.


There are three ways into town. Spent most of last week and this week exploring the roads and guesstimating traffic, inkypinkyponky we take THIS one, and cut past like that, and then THAT shortcut... and hopefully get where we’re supposed to. The days were spent in sinful luxury by the sea, talking work, gazing wistfully at the Gateway and envying the milling crowds eating bhelpuri past the high rise plateglass windows and taking trips on double decker tourist steamers cutting a smart arc in the glittering sea . Lunch was served on silver dishes, some of it quite all right, what’s to complain, though they could go easy on the oil and ghee. One learning: the ride does seem all right if one is listening to FM in the gridlock, red tail lights and way too many cars, particularly edge to edge on JJ bridge and one cant help but wonder if the design specs considered these loads. If you take the eastern expressway before eight in the morning, its fascinating to see the contrasts and the changes, from genteel art deco to working class grit, ancient mill-lands under development, swanky glass and steel nestling with single room chawl- type community living. And nice trees, more green than we see in my part of town. No, that’s not correct, possibly the green is more interesting because its unexpected.

Been crazily busy. Will post today.

Brick, mortar,glass cladding and steel do a hotel make. The squat structure by the domestic airport has been transformed from the public sector behemoth it once was, touched by a magic sprinkle called for-profit enterprise; though that path did witness a few eyebrow-raising quick ownership changes enroute. The atrium is beautiful, vast given the frugal norm in this space-hungry city, stunning given the contrast with its ugly cement exterior. Stunned the suits as well, and that’s quite something, since this bunch excels at seen it all-done it all. Impeccable poolside, tropical aviary, rippling stream and envy-invoking rattan for the seating clusters. The meeting rooms have cushioned walls, something even the town biggies have missed out on. One tiny nit– those strings of artificial flowers lining the railings do look plastic.

Decent enough week. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

A friend writes:

Creative non-fiction - which is autobiographical, but
is always dangerous because the images and characters
are so present, so vivid, that when I write I take a
lot for granted - forgetting that the reader cannot
see what I see.

That shower of dust particles dancing in that lazy afternoon light, sepia tinted with gold The timbre of voices, crystal, as they rose in unison, tackling mundane scales, now supportive, now showing off.

The fine wrinkle lines on the corners of my eyes and the laugh lines when I look in the mirror and see what I want to see.

The intricate needle point of a memory that recalls events from five decades ago, but not as much last week, or that important letter in today’s mail.

How could you ever see that?

Charade. A 1963 thriller. Audrey Hepburn, perfect, lovely clothes, and they all stay on. A completely impressive Cary Grant. Witty, laugh a minute. The dialogues are so crisp you couldn’t pare them if you tried. Yes, we finally watched this last night.

Eight things, more or less.
Because Quin said so.

8 things I’m passionate about

Baba, my eightyfour year ole sweetheart.
Colors
The stockmarkets, whattaride...
Words, 3 languages, thankyouverymuch
Street food
My India.

8 Things I Want to do Before I Die

Go to Istanbul. No I dunno why, but I must must MUST.
Have one book of translations published (not PDO or self publish)
write
Take a train that runs cross country, Jamnagar to Gauhati or Cochin to Jammu , where I can hop on and off the train at will, stopping wherever it I feel like
Take a year off to return to “real life”, maybe work in a store, too ivory towerish this life is sometimes
Own my home: glass finish kota tiles, at least one decoupage wall, bookshelves lining the corridor, nice long windows with flowing curtains, yes?

8 Things I Say Often

damn
donkey (gadhedo chey) and its completely colorful variants
oh hell
Really?
On the other hand…
Hmm..

8 Books I've Recently Read

I have very little free time at home. I just about manage snippets:

The Shambhala Way
Van Gogh Blues
Navneet Samarpan, a literary magazine in Gujarati, where I’m trying to read a piece about the autobio of a child prodigy-author
Last Sunday’s Hindu Businessline and a pile of financial n’papers, and this never ever ends

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over

Dil se/ ARR
Kholo kholo/ TZP/ Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Vaishnav Jan toh / Various
Udi udi udi/ ARR
Send your love remix / Sting
Michelle/ Beatles

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

they’re funny and bright
they’re honest and upfront
they don’t give a damn about appearances
they’re real. I cant explain this one. I cant stand fakes.

Four hundred words that were difficult to do, like squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste from the tube after you’ve pressed a rolling pin to smoothen the edges, greedily wheedle paste free of the metal tubing; finally victorious.

Bollywood shining..

The black lady shone bright, our very own Filmfare awards that I’m talking about.

Someday I want to sit in the junta seats at Andheri Sports Complex, cheer myself hoarse and clap red palm-loudly.

Tare Zameen Par is the best movie of the year, Aamir Khan the best director, that cute kid the critic’s award. No doubt about that. Will take a while before we see anything close. On a subject that is as difficult to handle as dyslexia. Such a bright and oh its-great –to-be-alive treatment, superlative!

Tabu, the critics award for Cheeni Kum, I don’t think anyone else amongst the bevy of lovelies that tinsel town features, could carry this April- December romance with such panache.

Kareena for a vivacious true to life sardarni in Jab we met, the best actress award, the movie was a riot.

ARR for the stupendous score for Guru, will take a while before we hear anything close to Barso rey.

This once I’ve seen all the movies, except for Life in a Metro. No way I can sit next to the sweetheart and watch this one, with its tale of parallel and sequential affairs of the heart and whatchacallit, supposedly set in this city.

For all the ppl who’ve been googling for Toshi Sabri and reaching this page- He was on the Star Voice of India show on Saturday, a little thinner but on his feet. Should do ok, heavens willing.

Sweet dreams, little princess.

First babyisland, and then abbagirl, I’ve been tagged once too often on this one, so, here we go:

Page 123, skip 5 lines, write the next 3:

The Secrets of the Shambhala/ James Redfield:

..Even if we wanted to give Tibet its freedom, it would not be fair to the Chinese.”
He waited for me to say something, and I thought about confronting him with the government policy of importing Chinese nationals into Tibet in order to dilute the Tibetan culture. Instead, I said,” I think they just want to be free to pursue their religion without interference."

I’ve learnt quite a bit about intuition, energy fields and outcomes from this book, it has helped declutter my mind quite a bit. Now I just step away from things or people that my mind tells me to avoid.

Nashta?
khakhra (roasted roti) with cheese spread/honey/ sesame masala. And the yellow khakhra is the store-made one, fenugreek flavored. Biscuits, meetha, a citrus fruit called Mosambi (dont know the English equiv) and a glass of guava juice from a carton.

Ok. I admit it. I’m the only person I know who’d walk a kilometer for Okra.
Okra, as in the vegetable? Now paying ten bucks for a quarter of Okra from the vendors lining the road; nice green, slender and dainty ladies fingers, is wrong, is way too much. Not in the winter, when prices are supposed to hold better. How on earth is someone with a decent income or someone with a single salary supposed to manage, I debate as I walk home having spent much more. Strange enough, it costs the same at the shiny supermarket as it does at the vendors where you’re supposed to haggle, cajole and bully your way.

Tare Zameen Par

Amazing direction. Awesome colors. Beautiful. Great pace. No, its not a documentary-ish treatment for a difficult subject. There is no preaching. No dumbing-down.

How the director has managed to enter a nine-year old’s brain is something I’ll never know.

I was/am an dyslexic at math, I tell Papa, reminding him of the times I couldn’t leave the breakfast table without reaching twelve nines are. But numbers now are trends, lines that move up and down when they’re supposed to, and its when they don’t quite, that’s when you zoom in and push them some and turn them over.

But what a movie. Defining. Even if this man doesn’t make anything else, it would be fine. Amazing ease with the medium. I can’t think of any Indian film director who’d have the guts to show an opening so realistic and funny, a kid mesmerized by tadpoles and fishes in an open gutter, watching this strange world upside down.

So what do you do?

At best it’s patch work, a hotchpotch of ragged defenses that you tack together. A, yes; but possibly B as well, don’t you think, you say as you try veer the talk to directions more propitious, but you’re by far too clever. No facades, no charade, as real as real is, but its your sense of humor to appeal to.

Perhaps.

Elphinstone:

Its been a busy time. Dashing about two cities, just glimpses remain. Trying to cook and keep a basic meal for the days I’d be away. The middle aged British lady waiting in the queue for a security check, completely frazzled and desperately needing to talk, getting back after the flight she was on was diverted since she needed to be hospitalized, she was in hospital for five days and doesn’t know what for. The crisp voice of the pilot saying that the temperature on arrival in Delhi was four degrees, which is quite a bit away from Mumbai’s chill ten The young couple on a tour of the cold hill stations,Kulu and Manali all prepared with woolens and suchlike,waiting for their first glimpse of snow. The roads and trees which are as beautiful as ever, just hints of a regal past in places, and one envied the tremendous space they seem to have spare. The meetings which were like any other, but lunch that was served on the lawns, freezing despite sunshine. Being told you’ve been overbooked on the return trip, and pulling rank even though that is something you really don’t like to do. Returning to find that a wicked man has held a giant of a city to ransom. Walking home past rows of downed shutters. Leaving for town really really early the next morning to notice that the city is back on its feet again. Hint of news and learning to say thank you, Mister God. Realizing how beautiful a art deco spire and a silhouetted branch seems against evening ink dusk.

The markets are sloshing with red ink. Benumbed and indifferent, I shrug at whizzing bank headlines, what’s eight billion or ten, give or take a few? A great IPO fizzles out to nothingness and is withdrawn petulantly. Then, another, even the Burj builder has no takers, not at these levels. These are GOOD issues, not your fly by night z listers. I watch that kid of a day trader juggle non stop calls on his cell and blackberry, his face grimmer with every call; three years, I tell him, before it looks up again. Pity he’s never seen the way the markets were a decade ago, pity he’s never been burnt, but there’s a first time to everything, and you may as well lay back and enjoy it.

Yesterday all my silent cribbing about a train journey that took long disappeared in a whiff, when I talked to this young girl whose shift would begin at eleven in the night, selling credit cards to customers in far away lands, so as to support herself through college, a masters degree and hopefully a better life. The city does that, shuts you up and stops you short.

This is interesting for the rough edges and polishable instances, a Gatsby redux: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/books/review/Greenberg2-t.ht

Colors.

It’s a game I often play with myself, traveling to town.
This time too, I have fun.
The colors of the bangles glinting in lazy sunshine, from the huge box that the bangle-seller is carrying on his shoulder.
The trains are wearing a new color, a smart gray- red.
The brilliant blue on the Reliance Mobile Ad kiosks.
So that’s three.
And sun-dappled stone of Elphistone College, what color is that?

I went for the translation workshop over the weekend.
The translation workshop is part of the kalaghoda festival. Read more about it here.
I was there to learn what exactly I was doing wrong.
And learn what I could do to get someone to read.
Even the rejection letters are dust coated now.
The group allowed for personalized attention.
I shall forever be indebted.
I learnt about possibilities.
Now to figure out how to write a synopsis.

Elphistone is majestic. The corridors echo with history.
A plaque in the foyer lists distinguished alumni. Such as JN Tata. Bhulabhai Desai. Setalvad.
A list of Principals of the college goes back to 1845.
The Department Archives, Govt of Maharashtra is in the wing opposite. Or so I learn, just walking past, for a look.
Unsettling, somehow, to see documents with the Peshwa’s seal.
And letters that Subhash Chandra Bose wrote, and Gandhiji wrote.

And the street fair?
A riot of colors, noise- excitement, great installation art, and too many people.
What color is that?

Looking at the mountain
Looking at the sea...
Autumn evening.
- Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

This morning I’m delighted to host a book tour with Dr Eric Maisel, psychologist and creativity coach, who’s just published a book on Creativity and Depression, Van Gogh Blues. My introduction to Dr Maisel was through his newsletter, creativitynewsletter, on yahogroups.
I shall be completely indebted to Phoebe, the gutsy protagonist of some of the parables, for guiding me through a maze of words, ever- so-gently.
I confess I haven’t customized this, with my internal editor on high, I got myself into a complete frazzle about my questions on culture and creativity, the late bloomer and creativity, self doubt and expression, and latent talent.

INTERVIEW

Q: Eric, can you tell us what The Van Gogh Blues is about?

E: For more than 25 years I’ve been looking at the realities of the creative life and the make-up of the creative person in books like Fearless Creating, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and lots of others. A certain theme or idea began to emerge: that creative people are people who stand in relation to life in a certain way—they see themselves as active meaning-makers rather than as passive folks with no stake in the world and no inner potential to realize. This orientation makes meaning a certain kind of problem for them—if, in their own estimation, they aren’t making sufficient meaning, they get down. I began to see that this “simple” dynamic helped explain why so many creative people—I would say all of us at one time or another time—get the blues.

To say this more crisply, it seemed to me that the depression that we see in creative people was best conceptualized as existential depression, rather than as biological, psychological, or social depression. This meant that the treatment had to be existential in nature. You could medicate a depressed artist but you probably weren’t really getting at what was bothering him, namely that the meaning had leaked out of his life and that, as a result, he was just going through the motions, paralyzed by his meaning crisis.

Q: Are you saying that whenever a creative person is depressed, we are looking at existential depression? Or might that person be depressed in “some other way”?

E: When you’re depressed, especially if you are severely depressed, if the depression won’t go away, or if it comes back regularly, you owe it to yourself to get a medical work-up, because the cause might be biological and antidepressants might prove valuable. You also owe it to yourself to do some psychological work (hopefully with a sensible, talented, and effective therapist), as there may be psychological issues at play. But you ALSO owe it to yourself to explore whether the depression might be existential in nature and to see if your “treatment plan” should revolve around some key existential actions like reaffirming that your efforts matter and reinvesting meaning in your art and your life.

Q: So you’re saying that a person who decides, for whatever reason, that she is going to be a “meaning maker,” is more likely to get depressed by virtue of that very decision. In addition to telling herself that she matters and that her creative work matters, what else should she do to “keep meaning afloat” in her life? What else helps?

E: I think it is a great help just to have a “vocabulary of meaning” and to have language to use so that you know what is going on in your life. If you can’t accurately name a thing, it is very hard to think about that thing. That’s why I present a whole vocabulary of meaning in The Van Gogh Blues and introduce ideas and phrases like “meaning effort,” “meaning drain,” “meaning container,” and many others. When we get a rejection letter, we want to be able to say, “Oh, this is a meaning threat to my life as a novelist” and instantly reinvest meaning in our decision to write novels, because if we don’t think that way and speak that way, it is terribly easy to let that rejection letter precipitate a meaning crisis and get us seriously blue. By reminding ourselves that is our job not only to make meaning but also to maintain meaning when it is threatened, we get in the habit of remembering that we and we alone are in charge of keeping meaning afloat—no one else will do that for us. Having a vocabulary of meaning available to talk about these matters is a crucial part of the process.

Q: How does The Van Gogh Blues tie in with other books that you’ve written?

E: I’m interested in everything that makes a creative person creative and I’m also interested in every challenge that we creative people face. I believe that we have special anxiety issues and I spelled those out in Fearless Creating. I believe that we have a special relationship to addiction (and addictive tendencies) and with Dr. Susan Raeburn, an addiction professional, I’ve just finished a book called Creative Recovery, which spells out the first complete recovery program for creative people. That’ll appear from Shambhala late in 2008. I’m fascinated by our special relationship to obsessions and compulsions and am currently working on a book about that. Everything that we are and do interests me—that’s my “meaning agenda”!

Q: What might a person interested in these issues do to keep abreast of your work?

E: They might subscribe to my two podcast shows, The Joy of Living Creatively and Your Purpose-Centered Life, both on the Personal Life Media Network. You can find a show list for The Joy of Living Creatively here and one for Your Purpose-Centered Life here. They might also follow this tour, since each host on the tour will be asking his or her own special questions. Here is the complete tour schedule. If they are writers, they might be interested in my new book, A Writer’s Space, which appears this spring and in which I look at many existential issues in the lives of writers. They might also want to subscribe to my free newsletter, in which I preview a lot of the material that ends up in my books (and also keep folks abreast of my workshops and trainings). But of the course the most important thing is that they get their hands on The Van Gogh Blues!—since it is really likely to help them.

I’ve watched him the last few days, walking back home from work; not quite staring, but not looking away either. Wrinkled face, a little bemused, he’s seated on a raised platform in front of a shop, watching the night traffic go by. He’s completely incongruous in attire better suited to small village Kathiawad: a white turban, an overshirt called an angarkha, a dhoti, stick in hand. Better dressed to herd a flock of cattle home. But he’s seated by a display of scantily clad, perfectly-proportioned mannequins, with cascading curls, or straw colored blunt cut hair, watching a sea of Hondas and Indigos coast by, and the contrast is quite something.

sub's up on sixsentences.blogspot.com.
dated January 26.
the lastest one, lots and lots of commas. semicolons surfeit.
thanksforreading.

Where and exactly how do values, culture, upbringing shade our reactions? After weeks of detailed reviews which showed much work had been done on the backstory- on blasts, building crashes, land grabbing deals, mill redevelopment and suchlike- I finally mailed across the definitive Mumbai book. Sheer scale and fine writing, nothing that captures the pulse- the pace, the dirt, the grit and adrenalin, quite like this one does. But how will someone far older, genteel and refined, raised in another land, react to these lines? Particularly the lissome, completely fragile Mona Lisa Patel? So sad, so beautiful, and your heart could weep.

Maybe there is something to this theory of filling in the blanks: I build 300 word stories with grand scale, with cunning and deceit, criminal code complexity and conspiracy, where the girls are necessarily not nice, gentle and pretty; but not raving stock market maniacs, and the men handsome, completely complex and unpredictable, but it is the sheer scale that surprises me, not for us a domestic story littered with he said and she said’s.

Red splattered the street today.
A carnage, long foretold.

When US accounts for 50% world consumption
Decoupling is a joke.

An exit far past overdue.
When teenagers play the market for pocket money.

V & V's baby:

Your tiny face grimaces for a bit.
You redden and pout in your sleep.
In an entirely enviable manner unique to three-day old babies.
Miracle baby. That’s what you are.
Born after a decade of waiting.
Born after a decade of well-meaning questions, freewheeling advice and snide remarks.
Born after horrendous treatments for fertility.
Including an ectopic “mistake”, that was near-fatal.
After visits to temples, and special puja's.
Born after systems had stalled, hormones at a standstill.
That’s when Dr UJ stepped in.
Oils, baths, powders, and inhalations.
All herbal.
Horrible diet restrictions.
Over two years of almost daily treatments, normalcy was restored.
And then the “good news”.
Miracle baby. Perfect.
Ten litt-el toes and ten litt-el fingers.
Sonu.. chotu…baaibeegoogaa I mumble in a strange baby language.
Proof that stardust exists.
“ Make a wish upon a star”.
Your mom and I laugh and cry, remembering.
Will you ever understand what you mean?

sub's up, on sixsentences.blogspot.com.
thankyouthankyou.
pushy, ya?

Because its mostly run run run and work work work; because how one has discovered voila! measuring the spices overnight can help save precious kitchen minutes groggy-eyed the next morning isn’t rocket science; and because a newspaper- attack strategy that consists of ripping off select pages for “later!” isn’t exactly a poem with blues, sapphires, deep sighs and onyx; and because the book for the blog tour sits unread past chapter two; because there is a flurry of subs, crits and very interesting ppl in the news you could just spin a yarn about although 100 suits is way too much; because experts sometimes don’t know anything; that I have not been writing.