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.