I Sleep and Wake with Kabir

I sleep and wake with Kabir - literally! I mean that I am singing Kabir, as I fall asleep, and I am singing Kabir as I slowly awaken - not knowing which came first the singing or the awakening. And so the days pass to words...

Piya Mera Jagata mein Kaise Soi...
(My love is awake, how do I sleep??)

It is true that I get drunken on the words of Kabir, am addicted to a Kabirean-fix, a search for that search - which itself is Kabir. And yet its so easy to forget...the lover that I seek, the path that I crave, the laughter at this world that I have found with Kabir - and I cry. I cry when I forget - become significant from insignificance - run, yell, scream, protest, to change this world. But, on recovery, remind myself that Kabir too forgot himself, frequently ,and wept, forgetting the silly play that this life is all about.

If all about me is Kabir and about Kabir is already me - then maybe I am IT..and it is with this IT, me , Kabir that I sleep and awake?

A Day of Watercolor Washes

Today was a day of water color washes - in inky blue and payne grey, wet on wet blotches, of trees and bushes in shades of deep to hazy emerald, muddy streams and granite wells, ruby and blue dragonflies hovering or flitting, three snakes in stripes and black, vast lands rolling and red, vaster skies overhead, clouds threatening to burst, renting in a thunder grumble, big drops drenching brown skin, and earth, brilliant gulmohars lit in fire, freedom swelling and senseless desire, to laugh at this day, that was lived for today..

A Stormy Sky

Giant waves of
dark and bright
rock and race
towards a distant light

breaking overhead
in thundering crashes
whipping trees
in hard lashes

swaying the earth
to an unsteady pace
laughter in winds
and wild hearts race...

Fooling with Paints

Lilly pad

Displaced

Shame

Bamboo Groves

In my Garden

Hokusai

Finally, the great master who is also a personal favorite is featured in the weekend paper that comes to my home!

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!