Kyoto Days

I sit in silence
gleaning wisdom in small, slow measures
from subdued voices, that hum within,
of trees, sky, wind, rain and fire,
of distant ancestors unknown, unheard, but still whispering,
of poets and myths inherited or eavesdropped,
of humanity's songs, laughter, struggles,
for life, justice, peace - valued for itself and in respect of all dreams.

I sink even deeper beneath the layers of voices -
that move in currents of light and goodness-
to the still and rich ocean floor of the nothing,
unknown and unexplored,
knowing that I have finally arrived at my anchor
to that depth where all roots merge to
feed the trunk of our cosmic existence.

Indicting Nice

I live amongst nice people - people of gentle tones and pleasant smiles, helpful hand to ease small pains. People born into nice, or cleaving one's way to the creamy top to become nice.  Nice people accepting their deserved or earned privileges as also the depravity of the rest -independently. They practice being nice with other nice people, and soon believe they are the world.

 I am surrounded by people in cloaks of nicety and insulated by it. For, how else are nice people nice, without being blind - to the rape of this earth, or its daughters?? To the pervasive hunger and the wretched starvation? How are nice people nice without being deaf to the drones of wars, and destruction of rights - to live, eat, hope or dream? How are nice people nice without burying their hearts in deep rocky caverns that cannot be wrenched out to fly open skies and hear the weeping and the bleeding from all that nice people do?

Nice people are nice by giving up the belly laugh of the crazed insomniac, thrashing of the awake, inconsolable tears of a heart that feels and cannot absolve personal blame in the fate of the rest; nice people are nice when they clip wings of freedom and neither soar high, nor defy death to dive into unseen depths of unknown oceans; nice people are nice by living of moderate mind and heart, pre-occupied with the consumables of happiness which developing demands and are comforted by goods rather than goodness; nice people afraid to open doors and peek - at the awe inspiring wonder of universe and our own insignificance, or the broiling humanity of injustice and penury, to stare with eyes wide open at both the awe-inspiring and the gut wrenching; nice people afraid to suffer or soar.

I am learning to be un-nice.

Munna Bhai and My Tailor - Manekam

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...you may all laugh - and, you would laugh much more if you could see me now!!

We, the community of IISc, are blessed with a particular tailor called Manekam - the rare one, the jewel - that is what his name means - and he is a fine, fine tailor. Just to show what the competition has to offer, the only other tailor on campus has a strange habit of stitching clothes according to amount of material in front of him. So, for example, if the cloth he has is less for the project in hand, he makes it in anyway, of a size that he can - without once demuring that the fabric is insufficient. On the other hand, if the material turns out to be excessive, he still does not care and makes a garment that could fit two people - inside! So you see, if one is reluctant to leave the boundaries of this quiet, green campus in search of a tailor in the mad world outside- and I am very reluctant - then Manekam is the only option for our tailoring needs.

Also, Manekam, is always really pleasant, friendly, cooperative and has a hard time refusing anyone. He agrees to undertake tailoring orders and then attends to only those that can pressure him. Thus the first ones that can get their work done are the campus security weilding mustaches, and batons. The second in line to access Manekam's sevices are the campus staff union members. They have bent mightier powers than poor Manekam. After that, I suppose, come the campus faculty with authoritative stance and limited wardrobe needs....and so on. Somewhere at the end of this list come the hapless females that at times give in to shrieking at Manekam before festival times, family weddings and so on. Yes...you can take it in good faith that many have lost their heads over a pleasant, poor, person like Manekam - I can vouch for that - but lets not go into personal history.

Watching MunnaBhai has somehow changed my protest profile...

Manekam has pending orders from me from October 2009. I see him now and then, when I go to the Janata Baazar for shopping. To be fair, I have never seen him either lazy or unpleasant. He always urges me to go home, since he would follow me, immediately - with all these beautiful clothes ready for my wearing pleasure. I have never believed him, but have not been particularly inclined to either argue nor desperately needy enough. Today too, my position remains the same. However, I do have some free time.

So, here I am, a fifty year old vain female, dressed in shorts and T-shirt in the same cubicle (a 8'x12' tiny box) as Manekam, who stands a good half-foot shorter. I am at one of his pedal sewing machines, with my Acer notebook firmly planted, smiling and blogging away...

I laugh heartily inside, guffaws are barely contained, at his face! He is trying to insist that I can trust him and he will sew and bring my clothes home! I am mainting a very accommodating position that he should not let me disturb him, as he himself does not disturb my 'work'. He is all confusion, and has immediately brought out my fabrics and is working on them, even as I type this sentence -IT WORKS, IT WORKS!!! Hats off to Munna Bhai!

Today I just Played

Today I just played with a song in my head...

Is ghat antar baag-bageeche!

In your earthen pot-
the gardens, and the gardener,
finest jewels, and the jeweller,
seven seas, and million stars,
the silent song roars, fountains burst!

Kabir says, listen you seekers,
your guru is within you!

-Kabir


Today I played with colors and lines after ages of waiting, hours of free floating mindless mind with a tanpura droning behind and a palette of colours in front!

Today I just played - with me.

Singing to my Fish

For a few weeks now I have had a gloriously beautiful fighter fish in a bowl against my window. It is colored turquoise to indigo and rose to maroon, yes! all on a 2 inch body of furly fins, a vain face, a full pouty mouth. It used to sit in sullen stillness, as many very beautiful people do, aware and sufficient in their own beauty. I wanted it to love me a bit, acknowledge, and interact - and play with me - a little bit...

no amount of prodding it - yes, physically, swirling its pool, pressing my nose against the bowl and making goofy fishy faces perturbed this little beauty at all - it was supremely unaware of my existence and content in its own place - the ruling fish of the bowl.

I slowly gave up seeking attention - decided to do my own thing - there was life before it came into my life, and there would be life even if I am ignored.

I sing - sometimes do tediously long riyaz for my long suffering family....so I usually try to give the family members a break and practice music when all have left home. Recently I have noticed that my fish perks up when I sing, becomes energised, buoyant, almost vivacious - it flits from here and there, swoops and swirls, dives in extravagant display of prowess and soars upwards in vertical lifts. It does all this as I wander through my room, singing. It also has developed a keen sense of the raga and is particularly partial to Bhairav - exhibiting very fine taste. Coincidentally, this also happens to be a favorite raga of mine! My dull, comatose fish has finally come alive - or has periods when it comes alive - when I sing.

I was overjoyed. Suddenly I wondered - maybe this was its act of desperation, of escaping, of committing harakiri, of flipping out, ending its life !! just because I sing?????

I am Lucky...

When life gets too much...and yes, it gets too much for the most sane of us, then I retreat to my farm. I am lucky I have a farm outside Bangalore, a farm that yields little - not much grain, little fruit, sometimes vegetables.

Bangalore has been lashed by heavy rains - late this year, too late to save my crop of lentils and millets - the well has been dry all summer long, the earth crumbly and brown.

However, when I approached my farm this time, I saw that the earth was green and blue! The land wore a surreal sheen and clouds floated across the once barren land. Giving a whoopee I ran down the path and plunged into moving, shaky, splashy earth - my slippers got caught in the grime under - had to plunge elbow deep to tear them out - ouch, ouch, ouch, the vile touch me nots were jabbing my feet under water - but no matter! what did I care! Muniamma, my farm help, laughed at my enthusiasm for water and followed me at a more modest step.

The earth at the upper levels was also soggy wet and the water tank that collected rainwater was full to its lip...the barren well was two thirds filled with reddish-brown water - not fit to drink yet - but a happy enough sight..roses bloomed in a hundred shades of pink and the vines were dotted with periwinkle blue flowers. It was time for some serious work - soft earth would make the clearing easy, digging a delight.

While the sun blazed down scorching our backs, we worked, Muniamma and I, clearing, chopping and replanting - adding to sections of the green fencing, mulching with tall grasses, burying seeds, bulbs. I harvested one single tiny brinjal for sambhar, and a few star fruits. We worked till it seemed that layers of skin would peel off in chocolate wafers and sweat trickled down our backs.

And then - sudden dark - clouds rolling in fast - at a touchable height, greay, dark and inviting threatening...we stretched up to gaze even as huge polka dots splashed our faces - no point seeking shelter - we grinned and stuck our tongues out to catch pristine drops straight in our mouths.

I am lucky to have my farm...

Subordinated Subconscious

A few days back, we had very interesting friends for dinner. After the kids got to bed, the conversation turned to the subconscious...mind that is. I claimed no experience/knowledge of possessing a subconscious - my husband, on the other hand, claimed he was unsure of the mind itself! Our friends, all four of them, on the other hand, strongly believed in the existence of a subconscious both via cumulations of personal experiences and supported by readings, works of neuro-scientists, psychoanalysts. I turned to wikipedia and found this, greatly supporting my skepticism towards the necessity of a subconscious mind. Despite that, I felt I should ponder a bit, reflect somewhat, whether I perceive within me layers of the consciousness - super, and sub- to un-conscious. Have I subordinated a subconscious to favor either the conscious or the utterly unconscious? Have I gone perceptively binary, into a B&W mode, without giving myself a chance to experience the richness of colors, shades, rainbows of perceptiveness and intermingles in between? Or, have I just never looked into the nature of my own perception?

What further intrigued me about the conversation was an unanimous agreement that an 'enlightened' mind, or a mind capable of living completely and constantly in the present, this moment, would be the only, exempt from possessing the subconscious - immediately stopping my claim of a 'no subconscious'. So, if unconscious mind, or actions led by it represent habits with clear separation between mind and actions - i.e. automatic responses, and conscious actions imply a complete awareness with which the action is carried out, then subconscious probably implies a whole gamut of experiences guided by an in-between mind - a partly there mind - a part of mind that is guided by a fuzzy-logic of personal history, uncatalogued influences, memories of peripheral experiences, which, without clear conscious directives, guide action.

Defined in this manner, I can immediately list an enormous sensory bank of transitory, non useful experiences associated with clearly delineated conscious memory. My mom wore a red and black saree in checks that day, when I was little, and we went on a family picnic - she looked like a filmstar! I remember the feel of hot rocks as I ran up the hill of Pakshiteertham, I can recall the smell of the cheap fragrance that I bought when young - my first one, without a name, or what the bottle looked like; and I can still see the setting of that sweet shop where I saw, in a tiny, dark, black room, finest silky threads of mouth watering Sonpapadi being wrought...are all these parts of my conscious, or subconscious memory?

And...now that I am getting more 'aware' of my subconscious, will I subsume it??get enlightened?!! Help! Is there a way to avoid this??

Blue Megh

The clouds oppressed, lightening split the skies, thunder rolled, the damp earthy fragrance arose even as rain dropped in big globs on my upturned face.. blue surrounded everywhere, all blue, indescribable blue of ink, prussian, royal, navy merging into raven blacks...the regal Megh blue of Indian miniatures, of peacock dance, of crashing waves - as the alaap unfolding with excruciating expectancy of long drawn awaitings, no rhythms yet, no beat of a steady pour....and then, all longing removed, rain drum down to a pakhawaj beat, soon to a dizzying, torrential unbearable speed, the voice and the drum merge with colors, each challenging and challenged....I sat in an auditorium, exposed and drenched in rain cascading over me, streaming all around, elated, drunk on this evening's Dhrupad in Raag Megh.

Language Evolution and Politics

I recently read with keen interest the contents and discussions following a question 'lack of an audience for poetry?' examined in kufr. As an outsider to language studies, I was intrigued, intellectually challenged,and enlightened by the variety of points made especially in the long discussions that followed the two posts. But mostly, as a mainly English speaking Indian, I was oppressed by a sense of guilt at how distanced I had become from the language of my roots, my forefathers. It is this sense guilt that led me to examine the history of how my language evolved over this generation, originating from a family of mainly Gujarati speaking to my children who speak comfortably only in English. I hope this introspection will help shed light, at least from my perspective, on the question of whether or not political manipulation or ruling class subjugation had any role to play in the course of my mostly unconscious language evolution. Granted, I am no dalit, and cannot know the angst of the class experience. Yet I have wondered, whether the largess of the ruling class trickles down on the basis of pre-selecting their own kind, or just towards those who can supply their demands. These are usually met by a qualified lot already within a financially favored strata. It appears that wealth and benefits trickle down systematically from the wealthiest, to lesser wealthy, middle class, and finally the needy and poor. Similarly each successive tier from the bottom upwards attempts to climb up to the next rung towards higher wealth, comfort, and a better standard of living - and, just maybe, these processes happen without a strong caste/class biases, but more supply/demand basis. Accessibility to wealth creation mechanisms, traditionally have been ill favored towards those with least wealth.

Coming to the question of languages, Kuffir in his blog's discussion summarises:
"my aim in this series of posts, is to examine why and how language is used by the ruling classes i)as a tool of segregation and ii) and as a means of patronage.

in my view, it's irrelevant whether india adopted english or german or sanskrit or mandarin after 1947- all the ruling classes wanted to ensure was to make the best education and jobs available only to a select few, and foster a feeling of inadequacy among the rest. they seemed to have succeeded consistently until now."

My position, as a well off, English speaking Indian on the upper rungs of the financial and comfort ladder, is this: I am part of the privileged class Kuffir is talking about, and so I need to search my soul and face some home truths. My introspection has led me to believe that while what Kuffir states, undoubtedly happens, the generality of his statements might be misplaced.

Taking matters post 1947, for instance, except for those with inherited wealth, the surest way to improve one's lot was via education and getting a government job. Most aspiring sections in our society still feel education is the key out of hard life - it is mostly the wealthy or the poorest that do not directly pursue wealth via education. But the rest of the highly mobile, upwardly moving class is focusing on education, especially English education, to improve their lot in life. In my life at the farm, when I offered to help local village children with their studies, the only subject they were interested in was English - even though they did not need this for their academic performance.

I remember growing up in fairly strained financial circumstances and my parents saying they could not give us wealth, but had instead given us education - by this they meant English education. It is interesting that our wealthier cousins went through limited years in vernacular schools.

Even while we were, within a single generation, shifting to English as a mother tongue, so were countless others, following the same path in making the same choices for their children. It had very little to do with the lot of the poorer sections. We were just being prepared to get a somewhat bigger section of the pie - trained to move upwards. It just so happened that we were in the correct financial bracket to afford the luxury of a language, which undoubtedly, has been a single most obvious reason behind the financial mobility of my family. Now, we speak English at home, not to 'foster inadequacy' amongst others, but as a common language between my husband and I. Our losses have been many, a divorcing from our 'native' language, songs of its bards, the stories and festivals, the belonging has disappeared. Would I have consciously made the same choice? I am not sure...

I am at this point reminded of the very interesting blog that I read almost a year back. Here, Ram argued that "choices of individual agents make a system. There is no overall design as such" i.e. no conspiration, no intentional victimization, no intellectual ruling class consciously subjugating the rest.
Like I say " we are most like insatiable termites, we consume, consume, and the biggest termite consumes the most".

Just Another Day

It is exactly half hour to my 50th birthday - and I wait with bated breath - will I become different? transform? suddenly old? Family listens with concern, that I do not want anything special - really, I don't. Want just a regular, relaxed, pottering-around day to wander, pause, stare, to take the beginning of this next decade, bit by bit, to slowly chew, savor the flavor of the moment - the right now. I hope I feel mellow, well fed, well slept, at peace with myself, within this external world.

Dont want to be compensated for what I have lost, and, what have I lost? youth? beauty? Maybe, maybe...I like the new me that I am becoming, as much as the old-young me that has slipped by. I like my unruly grey hair, the laughter lines, the new bold tenor to my voice, the stark strokes that my hands make on empty canvas, the body that still glides through water(oh, what pleasure!), a mind that still engages keenly, but more discerning, about what engages it - and my heart- I love my heart that is learning still to be more compassionate, have more grace, with age. I am happy that I now look strangers in their eye and smile - greetings you fellow human and may all good be with you!!I am more open now to the world, and to myself, and hope this will continue to be so.

So, what could I possibly desire from a day, that I don't already have? My children have made their gifts of love for me, a little turtle pendant, and green bead bracelet that I will wear with joy. Their love I'll wear with joy. I will, accept that I have reached this far, and the journey has been revealing and mine. I will accept this day, as my gift, with grace, as all the days still ahead of me. And that day is now - today!
Amen!

Diminishing Death

“ I have to be aware of my own irrelevance and fight it” – Satyadev Dubey.

I stared at this quote on the pages of a Prithvi Theatre Calendar 2009 ‘Mad Mad World of Satyadev Dubey’ with a strange discomfort, a stirring of a hidden resonant chord, an uncanny feeling of an unacknowledged self stepping out to confront me. The calendar pages carried stark B&W images of a man, beautiful, virile, arrogant – the mad SD. I sat mesmerized in the darkened office, flipping and staring at the images and quotes of a man who is considered by many as father of modern Indian theatre.

A year back, maybe a couple years back, I was at Rangashankara for a performance of a Greek tragedy. Besides me sat a well dressed man, old, silver hair, frail. A friend whispered to me “ That’s Dubey – the director”. I shrugged – uncaring. I am not a theatre buff – give me music anytime, especially long solos in vocal Hindustani and I cannot imagine a better treat. So, I was fairly unimpressed with a famous director sitting next to me. I remember exchanging a few pleasantries – nothing memorable. Now the same face was staring at me from a desktop calendar, decades younger, stronger bearing, glint in eyes, full of energy, power, fire, proclaiming arrogantly “ I am the best, its not an act, it’s a fact.” I am hypnotized, captured – by these images, this man that was, as also the echoes within. What happens to that fire, that blazing energy that vanquishes impossibility? Where is that person, once captured and immortalized by a lens, and the spirit that proclaimed these words? How did that person become this person that sat next to me?

It occurs to me that death comes to us in tiniest, immeasurably small measures, in every moment lived, with every inhaled breath. Death is not a curtain call to a grand production called ‘Life’ which is lived out to a grand climax – it is imprinting, tagging us as we journey along, either plod or dance, in diminishing moments towards a certain finality, a death. The curtain begins to fall even as the play begins. Now death is not a finale to living, but an end to a cumulative process of ending – more approachable, acceptable, familiar, and even comfortable. No need to fear swimming dark currents of an unknown, we are already swimming, unaware, in an unknown towards an unknown - and it is easy. In living, we are dying and it is as it should be.

What would be frightful, unbearable, would be a curse of being eternal – to have infinite leisure to do whatever one wants, without a certainty of an end – of an undefined culmination that hides, plays, diminishes slowly but can finish in a fierce crescendo or a gentle, hauntingly prolonged note. To have the possibility of an unexpected thrown in to every moment makes the journey worthwhile, the impossible worth conquering, a moment rapturously lived.

So in this play the life proceeds – in an ever engrossing time-pass, irrelevant and therefore amusing, a play between rights and wrongs, just and unjust, black and white. I stand in front of a mirror and stare me down – I try to seek death hiding and diminishing me in diminutive measures - the disappearing light from my eyes, the grey in my hair - and I laugh! Death is revealed in hundred lines that my face breaks into, webs about my mirth. I have tagged death!

Gold Grey

Today was unbearable- so oppressively hot! I spent the entire morning stretching to a very late afternoon walking amongst plants, shrubs, vines, trees, Lilly pads, in an abundance of green intermixed with brilliant neons, within short stretches of cool blue to once again exposed under blinding, scorching sky. My friend and I were visiting a large, fantastic, exuberant tropical nursery - and doing what we like best - looking at all kinds of plants for our gardens. In defiance of the light, heat, we roamed sweating, sweltering, singeing and yet greedy - to see more, smell more, buy more. Our heads were full of dreams of our transformed gardens, visions of paradise. We returned home with the car packed, spilling plants, shrubs in tiny containers.

I got to work almost immediately. The sky was getting ominously dark - the air completely still; a storm was about to break and I had a lot to do. The earth needed to be dug, pots to be emptied, saplings to be planted into the garden - before the rains hit. Barely half an hour into the project, the first thunder cracked, lightning lit a yet bright grey sky. The rains started in a rush - no gentle prelude, no light drizzle. Rains fell like big coins polka dotting the road, dark black on shiny grey. I continued working, faster, happier than I had been in a longest while. The rain pelted my back even as I was enveloped in a heady aroma of the earth smell, a feel of radiating heat from ground, and cold deluge from above. I worked silently and fast, grinning within. My son called out from inside, out of concern - I just smiled, laughed at this foolish joy of choosing to be out in this ridiculous downpour.

When I was done and showered and changed, I sat at my window. The whole world was bathed in a gold light - a late evening, dark grey light of antique gold, burnished to a dull, luminous, sheer sheen. The new greens were hung with crystal drops, in lines and rows, all tremulous, transparent, reflecting the golden light, lit also from inside. My lotus garden and the new Lilly pad danced to the rainy rhythm, throwing off sparks of water light to this beat. Far off a Koel sang as the rain slowed, the light waned, and I turned away, towards my home - all my dark dispelled, all the grey covered with gold.

Sacred Secular

I am a self proclaimed agnostic...maybe there is a God, or many Gods, a spirit that guides us, or a greater truth that beckons us. I have decided that if this whole damn life business is just a Maya, an illusion, then let me be illuded, deluded, play the part - as if its real - participate in earnestness in this great time-pass. I seek no liberation, no salvation, no enlightenment, no heaven beyond now, no hell to guide my moral force. And yet, can I really discount the religion and culture that fashioned me - that unerringly still guides my path, untangles my rights from wrongs? I dance to a background orchestra, chorus of all my ancestors that I call my conscience. My conscience is my only true mentor, a guide to what I will and I will not do, boundaries that I can never cross, at least in my imagination. My imagination itself the sheet on which I lay down my paints, my lines and its vastness is bequeathed to me by my past. This past that put me in direct play with the entire vast universe, animate, vibrant, where all roles between all its substances, are continually interchanging, a rock could one day be me, and I - a scuttering cockroach - all apparently in a blink of an eye, in seamless movement of time, backwards, forwards, across dimensions and multi-dimensional.

Yet, I get ahead of myself. The background first, since all of this has a purpose - an agenda, as do many of my blogs. A dialogue in quietness with myself to resolve inner questions, or at least phrase the questions better.

I grew up in a conservative Jain joint family. We belonged to a sect that called itself sthanakvasi and swetambar - which means that the family did not participate in idol worship and our monks wore clothes. All our living, actions, inter relationships within the family, with the outside, to the animate and the inanimate world and to the world of Gods, demi-Gods, devils and demons was played out within this backdrop, this stage of being a conservative Jain. It was a colorful world of effortlessly intermingled real and imaginary, present and mythical, spiritual and magical. It effected the way we thought, spoke and acted. There was a singy song for many things we did, like,

One sin to spill water
five to spill milk
countless sins to waste food
if intentionally willed!

and this would have its opposing counter of

One punya for gifting water
five to gift milk
countless punya for gifting food
if intentionally willed!
---
punya = a good deed credit that counts towards one's postion in next birth.

When we spilt milk, we bowed and smeared some of it on our foreheads - that we place you with respect on the top of our being, and intended no offense by our carelessness.

As Jains, we were very strictly vegetarian and staunch followers of non violence. Thus grandmother would rinse her plate after every meal and drink this water; allow ants, mosqitoes to bite her without waving them away ( because they needed to live); the louse we got in our hair as kids was gently wrapped in strips of soft cotton and taken far away to let free; no pesticides were ever used inside our home; we did not eat many vegetables during most year, and for the four monsoon months, we ate no vegetables at all. This was the time when jains of all sects performed great number of fasts, with and without water; it was a time for prayer and purification; time to work off some of the accumulated karma by self denial, and disciplined non-action, because all action involved violence,visible or otherwise.

Through out the year, grand father filled dairies with religious mantra, and these pages were torn, mixed with flour, and fed to the giant red carps in the pools - we stared at the greedy carps in wonder while grandma told us that they were greedy to improve their next rebirth by eating all the powerful mantra stuff. So the fish would become humans, and humans could become fish, ant, bird, or God (enlightened souls). We were told that we were in this endless game of enjoying rewards, or living out punishments for our actions in previous births - only when this accounting was zero (not just equating one's sins and punya) , could we become truly enlightened.

And then there were stories, stories for every evening of my childhood, sitting with a brood of another ten, twelve cousins at grandfather's feet to listen to stories of princes, monks, magic, and the glory of the highest enlightenment - liberation from the cyclical birth and deaths. I only remember asking one question often " If there is no birth after enlightenment, where do you live?" The answer was always " there is no you - so you do not need a place to live" and this completely boggled my young imagination. Could not imagine a no-me! Now I can imagine a no-me even without dying - is this a realisation or a delusion?

This background that fashioned me, I completely rejected, as an adult, in my evolution to be a superior rational being. My living world is guided by mostly rational actions, or at least logically justifiable. In fact, I place a greatest value on both rational thought and consequential actions - in that order. However, I have been denying this sneaky suspicion that often times, my actions are already identified, and then I use reason and rationale to justify them - that is, I am living my life backwards. I remember, this was often a way I approached science. I often instinctively knew the answer - that only left a minor problem of working out the math. Now, it appears that despite my great show as a modern, urban, educated, westernised woman, I am mostly faking this layer over my true self that I had little to do with crafting. My truths, boundaries, texture of my compassion, the depth of my non-violence did not come from the lengthy hours with physics texts. And by rejecting this core, I have somehow broken that thread of continuity that would have served my children well. This is after all the crux of my problem. In rejecting religion, I have somehow failed to rig signposts, shine beacons, illuminate a way with an inclusive awareness of all nature, respect for all props in their maya dance. The importance of self that imbues a modern western model does not acknowledge our minor role in the universal web, or the greater consequences of collective individual drive. It fails to speak to children in a tongue of wise ancestors, separate sacred from the profane, of magical possibility of irrationality, of compassionate responsibility that is larger than a person's singular drive to success. At their tender age, between youth and adult, world beckons them to high exam scores, shiny career options, point them towards job options that will buy them real estate, car, wine - but will they, like me, even know that they are nursing an emptiness of these accumulations, will they have a vocabulary to reach deep and listen - to a voice beyond rationale, reason, to quest for themselves when they have acquired everything and it means nothing? Is this how we have all failed? we, the next generation of parents that have substituted glitzy TV for stories, presents for personal time, logic for conscience?? Have we failed, so terribly?? How do we atone? What should I do?

Another Self, Another Voice

When the Voice first spoke to me, clamoring for birth, freedom, Parallel Journeys was born. It gave expression to the inner me that I hear, consult, indulge and value - utmost. She spoke of her wanderings, ramblings, desires, hopes; also her anger, angst, anguish, frustrations; she spoke mostly of herself in wide, large, most often silent empty spaces, and the inner journeys that arose from these travels to distant lands. And even as she speaks in her solitary solitude....

Another distinct, different Voice has been making her presence felt - within. This child is different - already attached, grounded, firmly anchored into the world she is impatient to be born into. This world is the world of humans, their social theatre with continuously unfolding layers of different Acts, simultaneously being played out on the large stage. She is mostly a witness in this theatre of absurd, but often, as can happen in theatre, acts take a life of their own , the actors and the audience become one, and which side the curtain falls - depends on which side one is on. This theatre of absurd is mostly a theatre of perspectives. She, this Voice, is a strange one - she finds her gaze often rivetted by the macabre of slit throats and strangling holds by unseen hands -cold blooded murders and eerie mysteries- played out on a social stage - trying to gaze beyond the curtain to identify the director who created this episode.

Her presence cannot be denied - inside - she has already spoken through her older sister Parallel at times. So - time for another birth! She resides here.

And The World Grows Younger.....

As life has accumulated history of merged years, decades and now straddles a brink almost half a century old, a wonderful development unfolds before me...even as I watch, the world grows younger, in days, weeks, months and years. As I watch, I am surrounded by a growing populace of the immortally young, effervescent, energetic, of booming laughter, bouncy step, a glow that belongs to gods...young men and women surround me everywhere and fill me with hope that this shall always remain, or hope - as long as they remain, or at least a germ of hope that this renewal carries a hope of future redemption, salvation from ills that we have bequeathed them...for they care not for blames, complex analysis, imposition of past, but will carry life forward on the buoyancy of their laughter, the surge of their chorused songs, the sparkle of their many billion eyes.

And what am I? as this world grows younger? I am as an ancient tree, in an ancient forest, watchful, indulgent to the seasonal surges of renewal bursting around me in young neons and luminescent greens, to the splendour of new and the pull of the young - attracting the bees, butterflies, birds into a wild chorus of overspilling life... I am that which watches through silent spaces- neither young or old - just eternal.

I

Sometimes,
let 'I'
suffice-
singular delights
of solo flights
soaring high!

Reject
manipulations,
of expectations,
imagination
that compromise,
demise
of singular dreams,
to step
into virgin realms
of
'I'.

Sculpting

Working creatively with one's hands, producing something real, physical, holdable, is a joy that I am discovering rather late in my life...hence fruits of such labor, more sweet. It also has me in deep awe, appreciation of the labourer, skilled worker, crafts person - an appreciation I missed out in my previous avatar as a computer junkie.

I remember the first time I was conscious of this desire-to sculpt- more than fifteen years ago. To knock out shapes, forms, of curves and lines, chipping away bit-by-bit with a chisel and a hammer, having a block turn into a form, expression, of my inside, on a rock, wood, substance-anything hammerable. I was sure that kneading, working with soft, mushy clay was not my style; I was not going to pursuade matter into form, poetry of expression; I wished for the hard hitting prying out of a soul that would otherwise not be released.

Today my son's insistence "Do what your heart desires" had me pull out this block of wood that I had been saving, bring out my saw, hammer, chisels, polishing rock...joy-o-joy I was about to begin.

I was almost defeated at the very first step of saw-ing out a block of required size-it was the first time I was holding a saw, let alone attempting to seriously use it. It was hard work, my wrist, and upper arm hurt-I couldn't believe that what I was used to seeing carpenters doing with ease was this very difficult for me. I resorted to a combination of using saw and chisel to cut through the block-finally-all of 4x4x12 inches-a midget for the grandeur of my imagination! Yet, Rome was not built in a day, and I reigned in my wild enthusiasm...ready to proceed.

Now, I felt, I was ready for the fun part...get a shape out-I chose on a fairly basic shape-a woman's head and started...within minutes I had already learnt more than I ever would have by reading a book! First, keep that damn chisel away from vital body parts!! Second, a wandering mind, does not a happy sculptor make-a couple of whacks on my own hand very quickly got my attention focussed! Then slowly I discovered technical aspects, wood will cut lengthwise or rather along grain lines-this is something that I ought to have remembered-Griffith crack propagation, works here as elsewhere, effectively, beautifully. I discovered ways of getting clean lines-at least, cleaner than before lines...avoid raggedy edges.

I have spent all my free time working happily on this bock of wood. At the end of the day, I am filled with joy, glee-I have the beginnings of a face-and as I happily boasted to my indulgent husband- there is no reason that my first work should not be - a work of art! That said, nursing my truly sore hand and shoulder, I am ready for bed.

Uncommon Life

Today I blurted " I want an uncommon life!" This statement has hung with me till now- bedtime, blogtime-time to sort things out, mull things over, ponder, resolve,attend- pay attention to questions of self- changing answers to which will guide my changing tomorrows.

Do I really want an uncommon life?
First, I define common as most usual, normal, ordinary-as favored by most.
So..do I want what most do not want-and if so-because they do not want? The harder I stare at this question, clearer it becomes that while I enjoy being liked, accepted (??), my real desires and wants are fairly independent of the approval rating. So when I rant for an uncommon life, it is in recognition of uncommon desires, urges, dreams that I feel bound to pursue- and my unwavering belief in my right to do so.

This resolved-time for bed-and no other thoughts.