Coming & Going & Coming - A life in flux

Before lockdown all of us were in different cities and converged during a common event like Diwali or a vacation. Just as the lockdown got lifted, we started getting again scattered with many false starts. Nikita came back after checking in for her flight as the college decided to do only online classes and she received the mail just before she boarded the flight. At another point Joyeeta came back just after 2 days after we dropped her at CEPT Ahmedabad because she got through pilani. Finally in January Pilani opened it’s campus and so did CEPT - so both were in their respective colleges. Not for long though as Nikita packed her bags and went to Norway for 2 weeks for a college trip which had a different level of preparation for the first time we packed theplas and Ready to Eats so she could survive there. 

This continuous coming and going brings with it the upheavals of booking a ticket and the drop at the airport and all the activities in between. Shopping - packing - send off dinner n drinks & conversations about past n future. 

While this is a reality it is also a harbinger of the times to come. In your mind, you know that from now on they will be visitors and that these coming and going is the only way forward. But your heart refuses to let go, you still feel their presence when you drop them and come back and see their used clothes scattered or after a few days when you aimlessly wander into their room and see all the pictures, time tables stuck into their softboard bringing back memories of time spent together.  

You quietly leave the room leaving everything undisturbed & waiting for the next home coming.

Postscript: Mumbai Dragon episode in Modern Love, Mumbai is a touching story of a Chinese mother and son, it’s also a story of struggle and success in Mumbai. See Nasiruddin Shah as a sardar for the first time. (Amazon Prime)

Day3: 200 words/day challenge ,333 words

Slowing Time

 One of the oft repeated quotes is Time is precious, (Don’t waste this time) it will not come back. Add to that - make the best of it & this becomes the mantra of our generation. Max It. Most of the time you feel like you are on a treadmill. Even if you don’t feel that way the sense of speed & achievement is pervasive - we have to always do something. 

How do we slow time even if it’s for some parts of the day? In the seen and the unseen podcast which I was listening to yesterday, where Amitava Kumar was the guest, there were a lot of interesting anecdotes on time. His relationship with time is that he keeps taking notes, doodles  and maintains a journal (which he has published as ‘’The Blue Book’ recently) & the reason he does that is because then he can see the doodle or passage at a later date & which would bring back memories associated with the note. He says that is the way he respects time.

 

What I like about the concept is that it is an interesting way of slowing down time. As  I am writing this I am thinking in multiple ways what does time mean to me and in that sense I am slowing time, observing my thoughts and single mindedly focusing on answering that question without any distraction. 

If one takes time as linear the only association you can have with time is memories. So for me time in the past is about memories, I have snatches of memory and not a photographic memory like many people have. I also maintained a journal from a very early age and it really helped me grow and understand things as I explained things to myself. Everytime I wrote and closed my diary I could feel a sense of calm.I started writing blogs also in a way to capture the thoughts that arose in my mind on seeing something or reading a book / seeing a movie.It was only hearing the podcast that I found a new meaning in writing the blog. It altered the frame of reference from people to me. 

Last week, Thanks to my film appreciation discussions I got to see quite a few black & white Hollywood movies ( 30’s / 40’s). For one of the discussions we saw the Nightmare Alley - 2022 version starring Bradley Cooper & the 1947 version starring Tyrone Power. I saw the 22 version first and the 1947 version later and it brought out the stark difference in story telling - the simplicity of black and white, dialogues delivered so naturally that you will feel like a scene unfolding in your village and not on a screen.The older movie stayed with me for a long time and I kept remembering the way stories were told to us when we were growing up and we would visit our extended family in Kanpur or Assam and listen to all kind of stories sprawled on the verandahs with no notion of time. 

For me one way of slowing time is to keep going back to movies by Basu Chatterjee or Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Whenever I saw these movies I envied the pace of life in those days - slow & languid, long drawn out conversations, cups of tea going around and people telling jokes as well as sharing family concerns without looking at the watch constantly. Those were the days when conversations and storytelling was more important than keeping track of time.

Postscript: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jhumpa-lahiri/ - listen to her and how she traverses time and captures them in her books.

Day 2 - 200 words/day challenge 578 words

28 days to go

Office after COVID & some stray thoughts

Covid has put shackles on my feet, a fear to step out which means battling traffic, noise, pollution, unplanned delays. When you step you give control to the outside world. 

WFH gave me my cocoon or bubble as per popular COVID lingo. My routine was set - wake up, walk, work, walk, eat, read, sleep. Repeat. Scanty conversations in between over food.. Weekend binge on movies, drinks mixed with philosophical discussions & a long run on Sunday to wear out the guilt of Saturday night. The only other additional activity of course was the newspaper which helped me do some armchair traveling and get curated news on interesting things happening around the globe - thanks to Mint Lounge & Sunday Hindu whose ‘Easy like Sunday Quiz’ had become an addiction. 

WFO changed that today - Missed walk, did Yoga,read newspaper on my way to office, had microwaved lunch, did not know anybody except our Admin so only spoke to her - imagine going to office and coming back like that. But ours is a plug n play office - choose your desk, work, get out. You have 200 seats to choose from. I guess this is the GIG culture which accommodates good talent in cities they reside & from HR’s perspective provides flexibility to employees. 

Being Curious has its pluses:

1. Recently I heard a motivational speaker Saahil Mehta  https://www.saahilmehta.com/ , most of them speak the same but have their own framework - I like frameworks. Although I have decided to junk them all and have my own. Having taken my e-mail id I received an email which spoke about mindset from which I found these lines in his email. “The "Iceman", Wim Hof, is known for being able to withstand extremely cold temperatures. He currently holds 26 world records, such as for remaining in ice for 1 hour and 52 minutes, and running up Mount Everest in a pair of shorts. “  I read about him and found him interesting (https://www.wimhofmethod.com/ )

2. Reading ‘The Pause’, weekly email from one of my favorite podcast On Being I found these lines. Our On Being guest this week is Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist with a lifelong love of the ocean, and of people. She is co-creator and former co-host of the How to Save a Planet podcast, and works across a number of channels at putting forward possibilities for what it means to love the earth, love ourselves as inhabitants of the earth, and love the ocean

3. On my way back from office I was listening to Seen & Unseen podcast https://seenunseen.in/ in which Amit was talking to Amitava Kuma - Author and recently turned artist - For the 20 mnts of podcast I heard (these are long talks upto 4 hrs where you are chatting to understand like your chats with your granny where she recounts her lifes & time  not like fireside chat where you have rapid fire list of questions which are objective and to the point) it gave a glimpse of how the author started observing life and why he chose writing in other words what purpose writing served in his life. What is astonishing to me is how a boy who grew up in Patna is now taking creative lessons in writing for people in the US / UK and is a celebrated author. 

As I closed my day and briefly reflected on these examples of 3 very different individuals in fact 4 if I add Saahil also in the list. I believe they are all successful because they were very focused on what they wanted, they may have stumbled on to it unknowingly like Amitava Kumar mentioned that he started writing because it did something which he could not define but he worked on it, converted that into a process and made a success out of it. To some extent what Saahil mentions about mindset is true. 

You succeed when you focus and it’s never too late to try. Iceman Wim Hof is 63 & I am only 53. So, I still have hope to put my act together ;0

Postscript: https://seenunseen.in/ & https://onbeing.org/. Listen to podcasts here.

Day 1 - 200 words / day challenge. 686 words.

29 days to go.