Exhale Day

I landed back in Bangalore on the 1st September. Last 20 days I was on toes. Volunteering Activities and then there was Service Space and Kitchen Renovation. Service Space shared daily prompts and today they had the Exhale Day before the last week starts. I took it as a sign and sort of let go for few hrs. 

I did not look at the phone, I did not read, I did not look at the computer (service space prompts). I took bath and just lay inside the blanket, cocooned in a world within a world. And I could feel the withdrawals. Usually I am not constantly on the phone but sometimes when you are riding you want to ride many types of waves to satisfy your challenge. It’s human nature. And I realized that one thing led to other and last few weeks I was constantly busy not realizing it. Yes, there were moments of peace and tranquility in between but I guess they were too less and too small at least that's what my experience was telling me.

Like it happens after u get up from a deep sleep - the mind was empty and was in a mode of receiving. For last few hrs I wrote, I read, I listened - It was flow hrs when u can feel that what you are writing is coming from the depth of your heart, what you are listening is going deep inside you / affecting you and  what you are reading in creating ripples in your heart and soul. 

After a whole week of cacophony, few hrs of harmony is what keeps me going 

An unprogrammed Day & handling grief

It was a 12 hr+ journey which I finished when I landed in Karimganj. After attending 2 calls I crashed to get up today morning at 8. Karimganj is the eastern part of India and morning happens at 4.30 am. Few months back when I came I used to get up around that time and forced myself to sleep or sort of be non-asleep. Kind of drifting between sleep and awake state.

It has been raining yesterday, but very sultry. Morning was comfortable and quiet. Like in Bangalore the house here is also near road and there is a constant rumble of traffic and noise. But today was unnaturally quiet except the sound of various birds, insects, frogs. Unlike Bangalore where I have a programmed day - my own here I just let go & did what I came naturally / spoke to me. 

I went to terrace and looked at the sun, the vegetation, shrubs, creepers, found my old friend chameleon, leaves of various kind, hear the rustling of leaves in the wind and looked at the sun & exercised - simple stretches. Just absorbing the sun made me feel so good that it’s difficult to explain. Through out the day that feeling remained - just doing nothing but looking and feeling, kind of awakening of senses. We had simple food made out of shrubs and stems found nearby and my taste buds just exploded. It was like welcome back home.

My coming here was to comfort my cousin sister whose husband passed away 2 months back and I could not come at that time. She kept breaking down and kept repeating the same thing of how he was sitting and just passed away. She must have said that 1000 times to as many people. And i could understand that how much that scene has been imprinted in her mind. I could not add or do much and just heard her out. What can someone say? This is in the past but for her it was very much alive. Just being there, listening, accompanying her to the market or in cooking, just sitting in kitchen while she cooked. Or talking about her son’s future. Or about the ceremonies and what went right or who helped and how. 

In an era of information overload we hear, read, listen to so many things - Ted talks, my service space challenges, articles shared by friends, newsletters like maria popova on philosophy. They all remain words - it’s only our experience that helps me connect back to many things or relate to it. These flashes are rare especially in a programmed life - although after my retirement I believed I will lead an unprogrammed life. But as I reflect back I programmed / set my routine. I think that’s my nature or a human tendency. I want to have a plan, or be clear what to do next else I feel restless, incomplete, in limbo. These vague feeling of not accomplishing something. 

Even as I was flying to Silchar I was reading about Meghalaya & Arunachal Pradesh and was thinking next time I should plan a trip / trek, do it and then come home here. But after today’s experience my first thought was to just stay in our Solan farm without phone & stay completely disconnected for a week. Just join the family there and follow their routine.

Can I? Or is it just a wish which will go away when I get up tomorrow.

3 musical journey's - 1 spoke

 It was just coincidence that i saw / attempted to see - Chamkila, Maestro & Tar. 

All the 3 I watched 50% and then yesterday I finished Chamkila

Somehow I found Maestro and Tar too individualistic. Maestro (as I read later) was more on the relationship between Bernstein & Felicia (his wife). That apart I found both their acting too much on the over acting side, the speech - mannerism etc. Just my sensibility - given the fact that they were nominated for 7 Oscar awards & Bafta and many more I guess I am a minority here. 

Similarly Tar was like uber rich, ultra sophisticated Cate Blanchet as a composer. Her acting is brilliant and watching her I was absorbed by her diction, facial movements and her role as a conductor. 

After sometime - I just gave up both Maestro & Tar - somehow despite good acting I just could not relate to it. Maybe I will come back to it some day.

I was pondering went right with Chamkila. I liked it because of it’s Indianness and the ethos of the Chamkila. I could relate to his struggle and his courage to do something, his love and relationship, the Punjab milieu, terrorism and of course Imtiaz’s direction. Chamkila was more wholesome and had a larger context which I could appreciate.

I think it’s also a surfeit of homosexuality or the angle of sexuality which comes up in so many movies and boh the movies had a strong connection to that. 

I see so many non Hollywood movies on MUBI and most of them are small budget, slow, are also around family and relationship and struggle. I guess I started liking them more than the big budget movies which are hyped and talked about.

Alice In the Cities - Wim Wenders: A 50 years old film

I got hooked to Wim Wenders after I saw Perfect Day, then I saw Paris Texas & now Alice. All 3 are very different but all has something I can relate to - Being alone, meandering, go with the flow - a drifting cloud just passing by. 

In Alice 2 people come together 11 year old Alice and 30 something Philip. A wanderer who has been roaming across US to write an article on US for a german publication. He just clicks polaroid photos (tons of them) and keeps scribbling in a small note pad. Having missed his deadline - on his way back to Germany with very little money. Then Alice gets dumped on him to be taken care of at the airport…remaining 75% of the movie is about Alice and her relationship with this stranger who is no one but becomes a pseudo Dad who is broke. The movie starts in US, then Amsterdam and then Germany - cities I have not hear.

It’s black and white movie but it’s beautifully shot - In US the hotel is just opposite Empire State Building - the tallest and grandest, we also see the twin tower, the bill boards, neon lights, busy street and then Amsterdam - bleak, sparse, fields & then back to a small town in Germany. In 74 they had metro where the rail tracks on the air and coach below like the ropeways.

The highlight of course is Alice who is precocious, innocent, demanding, possessive of her new Dad / friend. They are both alone in some way. 

I mentioned clouds because I just felt like I was drifting, Philip has the impossible task of finding Alice’s grandmother in Germany without knowing the city, first name, address - Do they ?

Sleeping with Jhumpa Lahiri

 Since last Sunday I have been reading 2 books in parallel - Whereabouts & Roman Stories. It’s kind of night cap. Reading such beautiful writing. I am reading her after a very long time - maybe a decade or more but I can still remember her style and sharp way she writes. Between the 2 I like whereabouts - It’s different - almost like a blog. Since I also write in a similar fashion I could relate to it a lot. It’s kind of life under microscope, a moment in a day, or an experience or an upheaval.

Unfortunately or as it happens in our life I was also going thru one one upheaval. I am not as brave as Jhumpa to go public but I write / journal every morning. Yes, it definitely helps in venting and taking a positive turn or break the downward spiral. And begin my day with a fresh voice ringing in my head. I tried a bit modified it a bit when I wrote the previous post (The slow passage of time). Whereabout became my bedside book before sleep caught up with me.

Whereabouts is about loneliness and how a person deals with it. In one hand, It’s a simple portrayal of daily life but it’s so much more. It’s not about the activity but what’s going on in our mind. The 1000’s of conversation which we have in our mind. Many of those become an action but most of them dies.  Many move from past to present to past to a possible future, an expectation of a beautiful future or a negative one to avoid.

This is also true for Roman Stories, memories, musings but unlike Whereabouts these are stories which has an end and a beginning. Most of them are nice - I just finished reading Steps - where the steps becomes a metaphor for tell multiple stories about people who use the steps. So there are 5 or 6 stories with The Steps. Like most short stories these are are about relationships, incidents, anger but what’s different this time is it’s all set in Rome, Italy and so it captures the hues and layers of the city, the architecture, the beauty and the decay. 

If you are a Jhumpa Lahiri fan like me -  you will love them. Both these books were first written in Italian and then translated to English.

The slow passage of time

It seemed like yesterday when we were planning her trip to Jaipur and now it’s almost time for her to come back. She is back tomorrow. Then I leave on Saturday and come back after 2 weeks. I know I will sit in this same chair and this screen in front of me, wondering - How did time pass so fast? Last 2 years have been years of coming and going. Some permanently like Papa and Shukla di’s husband. Sudden.

Some days, the days just stretches in front of me like large swaths of untilled land, ready to be sown but I don’t have the seeds to sow. Some nights don’t end, the darkness envelops you from outside and inside. I wait desperately for some sign of light so that the darkness can go. Then there are sudden burst of action and activities which envelopes you like a hurricane - It comes and leaves you completely drained of energy - as you watch it going away. And, vacant space envelopes me.

I try to create a routine through all this ups and downs and row my boat ahead. Not waiting to know the road ahead or the mist to clear. 

Just rowing to keep the boat afloat.