Making sense of the MOUNTAINS (1)

I don’t know where to start. With all the anxiety of the pre trip planning and ending with the excitement of eating, chatting, joking with a group of trek mates, who were unknown 7 days back but now feel like we are a group of BFF’s.

There is so much to write factually and there is so much to mull over that I don’t know where to start. I guess it will take a few days / months for some of it  to surface and and some of it to be absorbed.

Like Eagles says in one of there songs (In Hell Freezes over)…this is how it all started.

Lets begin before the beginning.

A naive me in Ladakh dreamt of doing Chader Trek excited by the stories of walking on a frozen lake. But then Covid stuck and we were locked in for almost 2 years. In those 2 years and after that many things happened but the trek. Ladakh was the first time I experience nature like I had never done before and if I was 

Solan - Shimla - Beginning of the Himalayan journey

22 and 23 both years I spent considerable time in Shimla - Solan. I understood the mountains through the programs we did for the teachers who were working in small communities spread across far - flung areas. Their past, the secrets of traditional herbs, their dresses, festivals, aspirations , difficulties.  But what stood out was their love and kindness. One such experience was - On a small hike, when me and friend got lost they not only showed the way but opened their house for rest and tea. But then I saw the hills burn from our window - not able to do anything. How the mountain cried, vegetation disappear so does the species. We thought of doing many treks across nearby mountains but none materialized. This March / April the choice was to go for a meet being organized at Shimla and then navigate my way for a trek. But looking at the locations and itinerary I realized - it can’t be both. 

And that’s how a trek was decided

Why “Har Ki Dun” ?

This question was asked by the trek lead to all of us and the simple answer was “It called me”, there was no strong logic, which peak to climb - but the only thing which I could connect was what Arjun (founder of Indiahikes) says in his video of it being a trek of self discovery - spiritual etc. 

Does visualisation work ?

The pic above says its all. I joined this session being done by my friend to create a visual board for 20 26. It there on my soft board from Jan 1st.

1 bucket List done. Thanks to my lucky mascot JO. More Soon.

And 20 26 is here

Fab 4 Vision Board

It’s been a bad December, end of a otherwise defining year. Entire December the only sticky memory I have is of being sick. While the year started with special focus in building a healthy me with strength training and plant based diet. Life came a full circle when in December my never ending flu pushed me to visit a GP and got a dose of antibiotics.

Anyway, I hope that is swiped away with the remnants of 20 25.

                                So, How was 20 25 ? Some end of the year Musings…

I valued:

Slowing down although I did not know when I did it. Reading old newspaper or a long form article in Mint Lounge or Hindu Magazine, physically with the paper in  your hand and sitting in a corner. Maybe in sun if lucky especially when you are in Bangalore or in bed. It was / is my go to process for centering. 

& Work - Coming back to work after almost 3 years rewired my whole life in a new & positive way. It gave directions, interactions with young people and most importantly a life beyond home. Maybe I can call it independence.  

I also discovered - the quiet of BOSE headphone, the experience was surreal on how you can shut out the world with the press of a button.

Concept became experiences in 20 25: Interconnectedness, Abundance are not just concepts they are real. I got my job in 2nd innings after 2+ years of volunteering because I showed up at many places with unknown people to just volunteer and learn. In one such instance I met someone and Socratus happened. I have been desiring an IPAD from last 20 year but could never cross the middle class sensibility and buy 1. Then one day someone wanted to give his old IPAD as it was slow & it back happening :)

I tried / engineered making friends with people whom I admired / liked maybe infatuated with or I though logically and rationally that they should be my friends from college / past work but by end of the year I realized. It does not work that way. I remembered the quote which hung in my wall of my hostel for the longest time “If you love someone, set it free. If it comes back it’s yours, if not, it was not meant to be.”  But I also learnt the flip side of it, you have to show up with sincerity before you let it go - so that you can tell yourself “You tried.” I don’t think I will try much of this in 20 26. My books, movies & occasional plays / music are friendships I plan to cultivate more in 20 26

We are like this only? A phrase which played on repeat in my head when dealing with family. It was a topsy-turvy journey with 4 of us staying together for a whole year after 10 years.

Age showed up in the form of aches and pains, low energy - Yes it’s a number, but you should know what’s behind that number. The sudden decline can be humbling.

Accept & Move On.  Onwards & Upwards.

Sunday Musings (Last Post of the year): An ode to memory

As the year draws to a close, whether we are with our friends and family or in an unknown place. One thing which we will all do is to reminiscence. Yet in the age of reminders, push notifications and alerts when forgetting should have been impossible - the more we record, the less we recall. Have you noticed how we keep forgetting to remember a past incident.

I read this article many times and in case you don’t have the time to read the same here are a few bullet points for you and for me as well. Because I will treasure this touching note till next Christmas if not more.

“Our personal history are archived in clouds we never see, and our collective past is compressed in searchable databases. It is as if memory itself has been liberated from the burden of being human. But it may have lost it’s soul.”

In a sterile or an impersonal environment like office the pictures on our softboard are our gateway to a life lived through pictures. Echo photo triggering a memory or a story - told & untold both.

“Memory gives continuity to identity.”

“For most human history, memory was an art. Ancient cultures cultivated elaborate techniques of recall - the Indian Oral tradition, the greek ars memoriae, the monastic practices of meditations.”

“Remembering was not about storage, it was about synthesis. To remember was to interpret, to connect, to assign meaning." "True memory is selective shaped by emotion and meaning”, “We remember what matters not what happens”

If we are somewhere in mountain or in the beach, should we experience the sunset or record the perfect sunset shot.

As 2025 merges with 2026.

Maybe, “we must learn once again, that memory is not a file to be accesses but a flame to be tended. To remember is to care. And to care, in an age of distraction, is the rarest act of all.”

Memory in the age of forgetting (Link to article)

The dystopian cities are here

Few months back I rewatched Stanley Kubrick’s The Space Odyssey and I was amazed that he could predict the IBM machine n talking computer etc back then. The same with Neuromancer - he actually talked about metaverse - living there etc. That was just an ode to science fiction

But yesterday n today Bangalore is dark, cold with high levels of AQI, I didn’t dare go out. We don’t talk about COVID anymore because it has become regular to have slight cold, cough, body pain - which lasts for 2 weeks or more. 60% of my colleagues are suffering so am I. 

Delhi is worst - people are wearing masks when they go out. Apparently they have air purifier everywhere - from car, balcony (one friend has 5 in his house), office clubs and yes roads too. They tried cloud seeding with no effect. Another friend was saying he and his wife went to Bhopal, another is in Himachal, the richer would have to gone to Swiss. But we don’t talk about the auto driver, bus driver, conductor and the slums which houses 60% maybe more of Delhi and runs Delhi.

I was in a Chikkaballapur - 60 km from Bangalore. Just looking at that space I felt - can i live here, if nothing I will breath some fresh air and maybe grow something in the side. Many of us want to do especially on the other side of 40 but no one is listening. While things are better managed it’s no different - polluted lakes, droughts, sanitation issues. 

There is nothing much we want to do - we just continue to live. The same life which from an environment n health perspective is being worse but thank to all convenience and discounts we have a perception that we are leading a happy life. Everything comes packaged at your doorstep right in time to put the masala on your pan - Just 10 mnts.

Some of us who are wiser won’t do that and if we do at least be wise to order an organic product. But for other it’s the palak on time - doesn’t matter where it was grown, how, what water, what soil. The curry is on time and we are all happy that we had a nutritious meal. Did we ?

It's been 3 and half years trying to do something. But, working in climate sector is difficult because whatever you do, it still makes you feel inadequate. We know it won’t solve a problem but we tell ourselves - we have taken the 1st step many might follow. Or, let me do my bit, my home, my apartment / neighbourhood. Let me clear one blackspot at a time or plant a tree - if not a forest.

It’s a daily set of check list I have - wash the plastic - store it, convince everyone around not to orde and if they do, avoid getting hot soup (a constant demand in this weather), compost my wet waste, was vegetables and fruits. It’s a battle inside & outside the house.

As we often say “There is no Planet B”. And there is one home 🙂 and one life.

A week of Discovery - Thru Art

Last week I saw “Meanwhile Elsewhere” - for the first time something done by Mallika Sarabhai and her troupe which I always wanted to see. Based on Invisible cities - Italo Calvino. It was an experience to be cherished, like a magnum opus which u want to experience and not judge (like we do after all plays - movies - books). For a change I did not want to - I just wanted to experience the colors, the music, and enjoy the movements. 

2 movies which RE- defined SLOW & WHAT CAN A LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP BE

THERE ARE FOUR FLOWERS & THERE’S THE WORLD

The first movie of Achal Mishra I saw was Gamak Ghar and I fell in love with his film making. Slow, great photography like poetry which lingers on an image or a face, real & local conversations ’s and a touching story told without much fanfare. Most artists are local and unknown faces so it’s almost like you take a handycam and shoot a movie - but in his hand it becomes a painting. Then I saw Dhuin and now this…
A documentary on hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla who is 88 years old and has won numerous awards and has collaborated with Mani Kaul for his movies and wrote scripts etc. 

This is what MUBI says and it captures the essence 

“A meandering brook of moments from two afternoons spent with Vinod Kumar Shukla, his wife and son at their home in Raipur, saunters between the mingling geographies of past, present and future drifting in and out of pauses - to ponder, to reflect, to reminisce and to share..”

Manav Kaul is the interviewer and he does it being almost invisible and away from camera just posing few thoughts. Few lines and statement which I still remember after many days

“I don’t go anywhere. I have been in the same house. I look at the same tree daily but each time I see a different tree, a different pattern of sunlight, different sounds which surrounds me and a different thought comes to me. Do we really need to go anywhere ?

His son “I can’t write much & I don’t speak much maybe thats why I keep taking photographs daily so that each photograph is a a story or its trying to say something.”

It actually reaffirmed many things - yes I love and want to enjoy reading the newspaper under the morning sun in the balcony with a cup of tea..I want the moment to linger on with no next thing to be done or looked at. Doesn’t matter what anyone says and thinks.

MY MOTHERS GIRLFRIEND

LGBTQ+ is about multiple colours, vibrancy and multitudes which these colours define the iconoclastic nature of the movement. And generally associated with young and bold. And maybe rich and infamous. This movie looks at the other side

It’s a 15 mn short film about 55 - 60 lower middle class mother of a grown up son (a taxi driver) in love with another women. Her son happens to see her mom celebrating her birthday in a beach when she supposed to be in a temple. And later she watches them at her house together. 

Its sensitive portrayal of real - true - selfless n caring love which also has passion. The photography and screenplay is beautiful - it captures the moments between the women but Mumbai as well. The mix of close up shots and expressions takes the movie to a different level.

It’s a slow - short & touching movie.

Threads that hold us

“The only shield Kasmiri muslims seemed to have against the systematic cruelty of those governed them was the solace of their religion and the shelter of their close knit families. Family unit are close knit in India too, of course. The family unit is the rope of which the whole world swings. But in Kashmir it had a different import altogether. Grief, loss, anger, fear shame - families were drawn close by these threads of acute suffering” 

Recently for whatever happened or didn’t or maybe I read or saw something. (Like Orundhati for me writing comes first as a visual to me) A photo of glider came to my mind -you know people / group of people who jump from plane and form a circle or whatever. And I was thinking family is like that - if one link breaks the circle is never complete. On families ( religion & Kashmir) - Arundhati Roy - Mother Mary Comes to Me.

It’s been upheavals - emotional highs and lows - breakdowns and exhilarations - lot of love and lot of hate for last 1 year when 4 adults formed a family after a break of 10 years. In those 10 year - kids who went to boarding to college became adults and came back to the nest to start their career. 

The rope had loosened, the threads had come out & the quality of threads had changed, it was different material. Now the threads were all hanging and doing its best to form a rope. 

I didn’t know what else to make of it. Family was my cornerstone. I remember this workshop on Stephen Covey principles. They asked us to draw an image of my dream. I drew a family of four holding hands with everyone smiling. 

While I worked hard and reached a place where I was getting a salary which very few get in today’s world, I did my best to manage the family, make time - be  there, support there when needed. I still do the same but things changed. I cannot understand them they don’t understand me - there are frequent misunderstanding. I feel more isolated than being part of the family - a lone ranger among 3 musketeers who are joined. 

I know the kids try at least they have the belief that things will change for good. Between adults we have given up long back. 

I am hoping the thread will be made soon.

Till then, I guess we just hang in there.

Amor Towles - Table for two

If Arundhati’s book was crushing and made me aware of her intense journey which was tough and as basic as it could be - staying in 1 room without furniture's, or fan or food at times working for days on drug induced haze and working to get 2 meals in place. And of course her mothers anger leading to her detachment with her family. It also made me aware to some extent her views on Narmada Bachao Andolan, Kashmir, Naxalites - a fight to save their own space & earth being plundered by privatization and politics of faith. The second part eas dark and made me feel helpless and anxious of what is happening to these people. I know reading a book or contributing some money or writing about them won’t help. What they need is a physical support not some armchair activism. It was not depressing but it was intense sadness which is not personal just like I felt this week when I read about Wangchuk being arrested or I read about deaths in Gaza and many other places. Their helplessness is something I can feel but cannot do much about.

On the other hand, few weeks back I read with the same feverish & intensity A table for Two. A collection of short stories which were so uplifting that I have not read something like that. Of course his more famous book "A Gentleman from Moscow” was similarly uplifting where the worst situation was converted to a positive manner.

The stories in A table for two are simple and gentle, it deals with day to day life, with the contradictions & self beliefs or principles we live with. Stories we tell ourselves only to be told by the author to re-examine them without preaching. Stories like “Bootlegger” or “I will survive” have a quiet sense of suspense which ends in a moment of sadness or beauty or an unexpected but gentle twist.

Many books you read for all the above but Amor Towles beauty lies in his craft, his sentences, dialogues, description - it’s like the cinematography or editing can ruin or make a film. I am a fan of his craft. My book of the year. 

https://www.amortowles.com/table-for-two-q-and-a/ read the authors interview. But after you have read the book.

Mary & Sussanne

For last 4 night + I was feverishly reading Arundhati Roy’s ode to her mother Mary Roy and to her journey from Kottayam to SPA, Delhi to acting, to script writing, Booker & now a activist writer. I am writing this post to exorcise my heightened awareness of her journey. It was intense almost like Shantaram the book about Mumbai underworld although this was about the under belly of Delhi and the powers that be (of Delhi).

I think most of us read The God of Small Things - loved it for reason not known to us (at least to me). It was not a love story, a crime novel or a saga. I couldn’t club it with anything it had it’s own language, own rhythm, own intensity - a latent anger which I could feel it in the language. The sarcastic tone / scorn. I read the book again few months back, when Somak who reviews books wrote about it in its 25th anniversary yr. And this time I understood a bit better - the whole story came back to me but I could relate to the English and the uniqueness much better. Having read 100’s of book in those 25 years I still found it unique.

But I never understood her move to activism - I never had the time. I read her next fiction which I found harsh and rough. It had the same intensity but the setting was a bizarre - graveyard, intersex women (hijra in common language) who has a guest house in the graveyard and lot of political overtone. The book explains why ? 

If you are curios about “Why does a person do what she does & why does a person become what she becomes?” you will fall in love with the book. Because the book is not just the journey but the Why? Of the journey - mental dialogues, view and perspectives which shaped her entry into films and then books. We all go thru it ? We all read about the success stories of CEO’s or great leaders - icons - They are printed because people want to become that. There are life lessons and aspirations for many.

This book falls does not fall into any of this category. Afterall, which booker winner has gone to jail, or has cases filed against her and gets death threats. Salman Rushdie maybe but for a different reason altogether.

I also loved it because in my heart I always wanted to be a rebel and became a small time one during my college and initial work life for a decade. The normal routine - nothing political. Then corporate life and raising a family consumed me, like it does for most of us coming from scarcity to money and it’s privileges.

I admired iconoclasts - still do. People who challenge the normal or do out of the ordinary. Hers was a unique combination of writing and activism which is become rarer and rarer in recent time. It’s a battle field which you get drawn into and need real belief, perseverance, ability to fight - physically and mentally, put relationships in block and a lot more.

I am too old for this - reading is the only way of experiencing it. Thank Orudhati.

Postscript:

After reading this I am curious to know why has Amitav Ghosh one of my favorite writer has become so obsessed with climate change that most of his recent books revolves around that.

Life = Thought Experiment

I could never read Gandhi’s book on his experiment, but yesterday I was engrossed in Arundhati Roy’s new book Mother Mary comes to me. As I read her relationship with mother and why she did her architecture and never went back home after 2nd and many other such decisions in life. This thought just popped into my head as I was taking a lazy morning walk on a start of Puja Holiday week. And I could feel it growing roots and shoots in my head. Hence some random thoughts below.

There are people who engineer their life and those who just float in the river of life and goes where it takes you. I always thought I am the later option but always went with the first option. 

So this year I started strengthening in our gym with an instructor after 3 months the instructor left and I too left the process going back to my daily routine of walk and exercise. At 56 most of my peers were doing this and I guess it helped. My body aches and occasions pulls and joins pains were becoming more frequent

Then I worked with a nutritionist for a holistic health n healing program to fix my stomach / sleep / throat etc. Worked with her for almost 5 months and learnt the basics - understood what works for me and what doesn’t, what can be done within the constraints of a family set up and now trying to follow that. 

After 3 years of volunteering, reading and learning joined an NGO and started more focused work on the triad of community - sustainability and SWM. I love the work, loved the people and happy that I can with some confidence say that I found my calling at 60.

After all this, my knee still hurts, back still aches - sleep is disturbed, have FOMO, have upheavals, get put off with peoples remarks and roam around like zombie at times when I don’t have enough sleep or go in a shell and sulk in a corner. 

So, folks close to me think, Dad’s - Hub’s confused, keeps trying things, giving up, unsure. Or maybe I have a low esteem and think this is what people thinks.

Yesterday I was listening to bohemian Rhapsody - In the end Freddie says - Nothing Really Matters. So True. But he did what he wanted to and maybe died a happy person.

Coming from an engineering background or maybe its just a capitalists thought that everything has to have a goal, output, solve something & when it doesn’t it irks us. Letting is a difficult proposition as we are hounded with our past experience and our natural instinct of tackling thing. Hard wired is more understood term.

I have been battling all this in the above examples of experimenting with myself. In the final analysis I go back to Freddie and I agree nothing else matters other than these experiments. Some make you stronger and some tire you out. Like the food battles I have been having at home and in my mind. (as by heart I am a foodie and the entire clan lives on junk food). 

I think I have rambled enough. Last word - Choose your battles and very clear when to Let Go else it can be a turbulent ride. But never say No to trying out new things.

C’est la vie